Actually, more likely, it’s been debated since the beginning of the creation of art in general, but we’re most concerned with urban art; graffiti and street art.

Spurred on by the chaos around Graffiti Removal Day, we’ve been having more conversations than usual about the “powers that be” interfering with an art form that is, at its core, all about freedom of expression.

Wanting to look at this topic from all angles, we connected with Melbourne based muralist and illustrator, JESWRI, who hails from Sydney and grew up in the Sydney graffiti community.

Aware of his mainstream popularity and the subculture that enabled it, JESWRI shares his thoughts on the culture as a whole, the problem with policing it, and what our streets could look like if we left the policing of urban art to the artists themselves.

Image credit: Mitch Fong.

You can listen to JESWRI on the Street Art Unearthed podcast discussing this and other topics, or you can read on for select excerpts around what street art is and how it should be policed.

Navigating the Labels

I think that I can only really speak from experience and my knowledge. I don’t want to go out and say, “This is what I’ve been told, or this is what I know about this person.” But I was a graffiti writer, and I transitioned from graffiti into street art. So I offer a nice perspective on the two.

I think for me, I struggle even to call myself a street artist because I do a lot of internal projects as well. So I just call myself an artist.

I think the difference between graffiti and street art is not that different. Whether you want to explain it or not, it’s not. Street art can still be illegal. Graffiti can still be paid for.

I think graffiti as a style, however, can only be held in graffiti. If you were to paint graffiti lettering or wild style or any graffiti elements, it would come under graffiti. But equally, street art can be graffiti as well. So you can still have stencils, which are considered street art, but that can still be graffiti. Look at Banksy, for example.

In my opinion, I don’t think they’re very different at all. I think it just kind of comes down to a name. But in regards to the style, graffiti has the upper hand of owning a certain section of it, if that makes sense.

Graffiti History and Popularisation

Modern graffiti, from my understanding, got popular and put into galleries in the 70s, after the Style Wars movie and after Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant.

It was popular even in ancient Greece, way after indigenous tribes used it as a communication tool. Because that’s what it is. Ultimately, I see graffiti as a communication tool. People will use it to convey or express how they’re feeling or something that they want to draw attention to. It doesn’t have to be a name. It can just be an exercise of communication. I always see graffiti as being the voice of the voiceless.

It’s like someone has a pseudonym or a nom de plume or an alter ego, and they can come out, and they can have this voice, and they can go, well, Jesse might not be able to say something, but JESWRI can.

Hip hop lent itself off the back of graffiti. But hip hop equally came from being a blues genre that was oppressed and stolen. Same with break dancing as well. Break dancing was taken as a rebellious movement to congregate and to have a voice. It wasn’t just this new, cool dance move. There was messaging. There were stories to be told.

It’s a subculture for a reason. There are layers. There are so many layers to this. There are writers, bombers, artists, burners. There are now gallerists, too. There are stencil artists, commission artists, and character people.

Who Gets to Judge What Art Is

One of my biggest things about this Graffiti Removal Day is that graffiti is always going to be removed, and we can’t stop it. But, if you put together this coalition or this group of people that are going to try and remove it anyway, they’re just trying to point out who’s an arsehole, who’s not an arsehole. So it makes it easy for us to go, “Oh, cool, sweet.”

They look and go, “What is graffiti? What isn’t graffiti? Oh, well, this wonderful picture of this lady that is part of the community or this firefighter or whatever is part of the community, then let’s paint him. But that Black Lives Matter graffiti piece over there, that is graffiti, let’s remove that…” Whereas the more important one would be the Black Lives Matter mural. But they’re still going to remove it because they’re now policing what can go up and what can’t.

You’re putting up subjective opinion into people with no knowledge of art, no precedence in the subculture, no artists in general. Just talentless people.

I think that they need to boot a lot of those people, a lot of those liberals. They need to boot the uncultured people that they have employed. They need to stop being privately funded or publicly state where their money’s coming from. Then, once booting these people, they need to employ people who have an idea — people who are in the arts movement.

They need to say, “All right. Cool. Out with the outdated. Out with the uncultured. Let’s bring in gallerists. Let’s bring in people who understand arts. Let’s bring in artists, actual artists, active artists.” Let’s bring in people who are established within the graffiti community. People who understand not only graffiti subculture, but street art culture, and people who appreciate art.

That’s probably the easiest thing that you can do. And, obviously, change the name.

What Happens If We Don’t Police Graffiti

Well, there’ll become this natural order of things. Graffiti already has a natural order. There are already natural rules that we live and stand by that even I’ve taken into street art. We just kind of police ourselves. I know that that Nazi symbol doesn’t belong here, so I’m going to go over it. You don’t need to remove it. We’ll do it.

There are basic rules of what you can and can’t go over if you’re another artist. The very, very entry-level shit is this: You can’t go over someone that’s better than you. If you want to go over someone, you have to burn them. You have to deliver the fucking best Burner you can think of. All of it too. You have to cover the entire wall.

Photo credit: Yeah Rad.

You can’t tag over other people’s pieces — “cap it.”

If given a chance, I think graffiti can uplift a suburb. The natural order of things can push out the… insects. No graffiti writer or graffiti artist, or bomber is going to go and tag a shop window. Nobody’s going to actively go and draw Nazi symbols or dicks anywhere.

The natural order of things will push these people out. What you would see, if uncontrolled and untamed and left to its devices, is that graffiti as a subculture can really make a qualified, gentrified district. Even the train lines as well.

I think Scott Marsh made a great point… Think about how much paint and money they waste every week by covering up graffiti. Thousands, millions of dollars go into buff paint, and it’s ugly. There’s nothing more shit than doing that.

I remember when I was a kid, my mum used to take me on the trains and go around, seeing all the colourful pieces. We used to see all the graffiti on the street, and I was like, “This is sick. This is so colourful. This is awesome to look at.” If that was allowed, that would ultimately brighten up a lot of people’s days. That’s where graffiti started from. People really just wanted to paint colourful shit on New York trains and brighten people’s day.

For more articles with wisdom and fun chats from JESWRI, check out the JESWRI archives. And, of course, be sure to follow him online.

Another F**King Debate About What Art Is And Who Gets To Decide (Ft. JESWRI) was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While our conversation began with how wasteful spray cans are as a tool for painting, it spiralled into a whole movement-wide issue. The illegality of graffiti doesn’t exactly inspire writers to take their used cans with them when they’re done… The competitive culture amongst spray paint brands doesn’t inspire them to improve the design to minimise waste…

And then we got onto the festivals.

As a highly praised artist in both the graffiti and street art scenes, with exposure and fans worldwide, Askew One has been to a butt-tonne of festivals. And he has seen first hand how wasteful this movement can be.

You can listen to the full conversation with Askew One on the podcast below or read on for excerpts about how festivals are handled and who is doing it (mostly) right.

Waste in Festivals

Obviously, in the last decade, I found myself at a lot of these festivals, doing several a year on a kind of consistent circuit and the amount of waste… It’s wild, you know!

You’ve always had your artists who have worked minimally and been really considerate from the start. Roa is an example of someone who has always worked with minimal spray paint and a lot of roller paint. He keeps it really basic. I looked at him early on and realised he is really concerned with this, but a lot of people come, they fly in — they fly in, for starters –, they have to work in a really short, high pressured time frame — usually, no longer than ten days to achieve the impossible.

It’s really hard for us to travel with our own equipment, so we’re buying all new equipment at each place we go, putting that onto the festival organisers and then there is an abundance of leftover product and waste.

Workarounds To Do Better

The festivals usually end up with a sponsor, and you’re going to get whatever the product is that’s from the sponsor. It’s up to you to choose whether you want to use that product or not.

The idea would generally be that you wouldn’t be seen using a competitor’s product at their festival because that would be in breach of their agreement.

That was another thing that compelled me to paint a lot more with a brush at festivals and unveiled to me just how economical they were, how much easier it was to maintain the equipment. I could clean up brushes, and they could be reused, I could clean up trays, and they could be reused.

Also, I didn’t have to have every colour under the sun because I could mix. You could work wet directly on the wall, and you can mix any colour that you want if you have like five colours to work from. If you work from a five colour process of RGB and black and white, you can kind of get everything you need. You might only need one additional colour if you want something particularly loud.

That revealed to me that there is a more economical way to do this, but you’re always going to overrun on your order, and there is always going to be excess leftover.

Successes and Fails Across the World

How these festivals deal with that, I’ve seen such radically different approaches.

Nearly every American organised festival is awful. Nothing is their concern: not paying artists, not feeding artists correctly, the influence of large property developers with their own agendas, strange political figures that are involved in these things with a longterm agenda to gentrify and push people out of the neighbourhood.

Everything about American festivals is just horrible, with definitely some good acceptions. There are some exceptions.

I would say overall that the Sea Walls guys — because it’s part of their mandate — try. But it’s not perfect all the time. Some situations are just so complicated.

We went to Churchill, Manitoba. It’s like every bit of waste that’s ever gone to Churchill, Manitoba, is pretty much still there. Every car that has ever been driven in Churchill, Manitoba, is still there in a decaying state on the side of the road. It’s so isolated, and things can only come on a train line. So that created an interesting dilemma for them, but overall they have a dedicated team.

There are two guys, Simon, who is from New Zealand and Kai, who is from Hawaii. The two of them basically drive around and sort out the paint to condense down paint, clean up buckets correctly, and maintain equipment so that everything could be reused. That was their role, and that’s one of the only festivals I’ve ever seen that has anyone actually doing that, but in saying that, I am not too sure if there was even a way to get all the leftovers out of that town after it was finished. Potentially everything that went there is still there.

The New Zealand and Australian festivals are really way above anybody else as far as their track record and their thinking around any of this.

Better Festival Management

I think that if you’re an ongoing festival, it’s basically sorting and cleaning up everything. Condensing everything and putting it aside for the following year, and then recycling your waste.

The Street Prints festival in New Zealand, they do that.

There is always a surplus of paint for the following year, and they encourage people to work from that paint before they purchase additional supplies.

You could also use Resine, a New Zealand paint manufacturer that’s also available in selected sites in Australia. They have a recycling program, they recycle leftover paint, and they recycle the pots. You can take everything back to the store, and they will do it. But there is no equivalent to that in America.

Expanding on the topic of better festival management, Askew One explores other angles like improved community engagement, diversity and management on his Patreon blog. Check it out here.

Plus, there’s art.

Eumundi street art is mostly the kind of public art you expect to see in little hippy areas, with a few very special additions by local and nationally renowned street artists, thanks to the Sunshine Coast’s Horizon Festival.

Photos used in this article are from Brisbane street art photographer, DKJ Street Art Photography. Check him out on Instagram.

Eumundi Street Art Map

Using the static street art map from Experience Eumundi, we’ve made a downloadable, interactive Google map so that you can download it on your phone and follow along as you’re checking out the markets or many cafes.

While you’re on the Sunshine Coast, so not miss street art hunting in other areas like nearby Noosa. Or Nambour, Maroochydore and Caloundra a little further down the coast. You can find the entire Sunshine Coast map here.

Wall by Mort Murray.

For the rest of Australia, check out our Street Art Maps page to find your next hunting destination.

Header image by David Houghton.

Eumundi Street Art Map was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With that dark energy, he painted through his feelings, revisited his roots and produced epic work that would become his Knowhere exhibition.

To discuss this and many other things, JESWRI joined us on Street Art Unearthed.

Finding Himself Knowhere

I had this one, which was called Knowhere. Basically, I found myself in an extremely dark place in my head. Everything I thought that I had a remedy for wasn’t working because I was in lockdown.

I tried painting through my normal style, and just the finessing and the consistent line work that I’ve got, the bold lines, it wasn’t working. I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. So I basically left everything I knew as a practising artist at home. And I just decided to go like Jackson Pollock concept paintings. And then just not really have a care and just express myself with my brushes and stuff.

I would flick paint at it. I would close my eyes and see what would happen. I’d play music really loudly because there was no one here. I just found myself fighting with my head and fighting with my canvases and just kind of seeing what came out. And what came out was a really cool transition from really uncontrolled, untamed artworks.

Twenty canvases later, they found themselves on this nice structural journey back into this really weird style. I kind of took that style into what I’m doing now, which is cool.

It was almost like I revisited my graffiti routes of just buffing things and just using very tribal tools and application as opposed to trying to force really non-expressive line work. It felt really cool.

It was a good response, too. I had a lot of people talking about mental health in general. I was very open to this fact that the show was about mental health. I called it Knowhere with a K because I wanted to say I’m nowhere, but I know I’m here and now here, and I don’t know. It was just a nice little play on words.

It was really internally gratifying. I had a lot of people come and ask me if I was okay and tell me about their stories as well. It was a very rewarding show.

I’m incredibly vigilant, and I always need to be doing something. I think it was really nice because there was only so much I could do. I could drink away my sorrows, which I did. And I was like, oh cool, I’ve got no sorrows left. Six bottles of wine later, I’m vomiting in the toilet…

I could exercise as much as I possibly could, but then I kind of wasn’t even getting that. I couldn’t get any sunlight. I couldn’t do anything. So I was like, “All right, I’m just going to go listen to music, whatever I’m feeling at the moment and just stop trying to control my emotions and really just let my emotions talk to me.”

At the start, the paintings were kind of suggesting themes of being trapped, and they were suggesting things of really being angry and alone.

The first artwork I painted was a killer whale inside a fishbowl, just cramped up and stuck. Then the final painting finished on this red and orange eagle just getting ready to take off. It was a nice transformation. It was a nice journey.

Once again, it was really gratifying because I could let go of these emotions, and I could tell a story internally. If people asked, I told them what things were about. It was a nice chapter, a nice little side project. I didn’t care if they sold. I didn’t care if I moved anything. I just want people to talk about this stuff because it’s important.

My favourite painting from the show was this grim reaper that I had that had a Mickey Mouse hat on. That was the first one that sold. I was really stoked with that. Melbourne was realistically the only one locked down, so many of my friends around Australia were just kind of business as usual. I spoke to one person, and I got so pissed off with him, he’s like, “Oh, at least you get some time off. At least you get a holiday.” And I was like, “It’s not a fucking holiday, man.” So I painted that out of frustration. I was like, “It’s not a holiday.” And I called that painting, It’s Not a Holiday.

I’ve taken a part of the application into my mural process. The way that I finished was these nice graffiti buffing lines and applicator with a brush. The way that I’ve put them on with horizontal lines, and now I’ve incorporated it into the way that I do my portraits as well.

It’s almost like I’m taking a part of that chapter into the next thing. I look at it as though I’ve upskilled a little bit.

What’s Next For JESWRI

I’m focusing on myself. I’m spending a lot of time focusing on myself as opposed to putting something out that feels rushed. I think I’m at a nice level with my career where I can pick and choose jobs, and I can give jobs to my friends if needed and spend time with individual projects and really appreciate them.

I’m focusing on getting my health back and just doing really cool shit when needed.

Professionally, I’m working on my murals. Obviously, Honey Bones takes up a lot of my time, which is great. Because now I get to do things for the community. I get to do things for other artists. I get to bring artists on to another level.

I get to upskill them. We do things at honey bones, which are different from other galleries, as well. So we’re doing markets celebrating local or small businesses. We’re doing a clothes swap and giving 100% of the money to Elizabeth Morgan House, a refuge centre for Indigenous domestic violence victims.

I’ve started delegating things. I got myself a manager, which I think was the best thing I ever did. He manages my accounts. He handles all my incoming jobs, my schedules, everything. He has communication with clients. So I can just rock up to a job and go like, “here’s the artwork, let’s rock and roll.” There’s no hassle.

I’m a lot more stress-free. I brought on a designer to focus on the things that I don’t have time for. She did my website. I’m just focusing more on the business and focusing more on my health and the community — trying to be a bit selfish and selfless at the same time.

Rising Up Outta Lockdown With JESWRI was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But on the other hand, what you create exposes a part of who you are, and facing judgement on this is hard.

Sharing art with the world is scary.

So panic, inferiority complexes and myriad insecurities are understandable, and the best artists don’t have a magic immunity to this, they’ve just learned how to persevere.

Given this is such a common topic to come up on the Street Art Unearthed podcast, we wanted to share snippets of wisdom from some of the coolest artists in Australia who’ve faced their fears, pushed forward and learned how to move in the art world with their worries (mostly) in check.

Sneaking into the Cool Club — Tinky Sonntag

I have to admit probably the first two to three years I felt like a real fraud. It was definitely imposter syndrome. I was almost embarrassed to tell somebody that was a really brilliant painter or had great skills with a spray can, a sculptor or whatever. I was embarrassed. But then the feedback that I was getting, for the most part, was so positive and accepting that I ended up just going “It’s okay.”

“Never one to bury her feelings, Josie was unimpressed by an 8am funeral service. She just wasn’t a mourning person.”

I don’t have to have a degree, I don’t have to paint really well. This is just my thing. And I’ll be doing it. But it took a long time because I did feel like I shouldn’t belong. I felt like I busted in on some really cool club and could be found out any second.

The first festival, it was very focused on graffiti, and it was very male-dominated. I was just like this middle-aged woman, but I got really a lovely reception from people I met and talked to.

I didn’t get shunned or anything like that, but I was kind of conscious that people might be thinking, “”What is she doing here?” Like “How does she fit into this kind of scene?”

In my second year, I was asked to go to the Wall to Wall Festival in Benalla, which is a really beautiful festival. It’s a big festival. Like really big names. It’s amazing.

I got asked if I would like to be part of it. And because I’d only been in it for like a year or two at that point, I don’t think I fully realised what it meant. I was like, “What am I doing as part of this?” And I kept thinking, “Oh no, I’m not really part of it. I’m just maybe an add on.” I don’t know. It was just too much for my little brain to kind of compute and go, “I belong here.”

There was a big dinner with all of the artists on one of the nights, which was absolutely amazing. I remember having really fascinating conversation with some collectors that I’d heard about. They just had some really, really amazing stories. I met Patchy, Julian, who’s just the most beautiful guy. And I dunno, I just kind of tried to be normal. There were others, like Adnate, who I would never go near. I was too intimidated. It was so much fun, but probably it was like a year or two later I realised what a big honour that was, and again, I felt like I’d lucked my way into it rather than earnt my way in.

It was all so unexpected, and it’s still kind of is.

I spent sort of three years saying yes to everything I got approached to do. I was like, “Yeah, just go outside your comfort zone.” I’m glad I did that. It’s scary sometimes, but I thought “Oh, just do it. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

Fake it Till You Make It — Jack Fran

For me, I really did throw myself in the deep end. I made a lot of mistakes. I could honestly say my first two, three years painting were really bad.

I was literally learning on the job. It’s like someone had asked me to paint this and they’d ask “have you ever painted this?” and I’m like “yeah… sure” and I never did, but that’s kind of how I started, I guess.

The common thing that I would have clients say is: “I could barely draw a stick figure”. And I’m like “Yes, I’m one up on you.”

I had that fake it till you make it sort of like mindset. But there was a point in time where I was like “actually, I need to pull the reins on this because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Owning the Occupation — Tom Gerrard

I had a few false starts as an artist. I worked in graphic design for years. I did it for 13 years, and art was always a thing on the side. But when I was in South America, and we’d cross borders, you’d have to fill out a form, and they’d say, “All right, what’s your occupation,” and I’d write artist. And my wife used to tease me and go, “You’re not an artist.” And I’d say, “Yes, I am, yes, I am.” And she’s like, “Well, where’s your art?” And I’d go, “It’s all these paintings I’m doing.” And she’s like, “That’s graffiti, that’s not art.” And it’s like, “Well, it’s art too. And what about the characters, they’re art?” And she’s like, “Yeah.” And I’d go, “Anyway, what other occupation do I put at the moment?” And she’s like, “Yeah, fair enough.” I’m not going to write traveller, you know.

I made sure I did that every time I had to do a border crossing and fill out the occupation. I always wrote artist, and it felt really good. I felt proud to do that.

It wasn’t until I came back… after leaving Barcelona… Actually, I tried to live as an artist in London and ran out of money. Then I tried to live as an artist when I got to Barcelona, and I was developing more styles then, but I didn’t have a… I don’t know, I didn’t really know how I was going to make money, and no-one’s buying a lot of art in Barcelona. There’s not a lot of disposable income.

So when I got back to Melbourne, I worked for a year as a graphic designer, and I started my podcast Bench Talk, and I started interviewing artists who were making a living as an artist and just asking them how they were doing it. It got to about episode 20 or so, and I thought, “I think I’ve got enough to give this a crack.” And I had a bit of work, and I had an exhibition lined up, and I didn’t have enough time to get all the paintings done, so I just got into the studio and just never looked back.

Speaking it Into Being — Mulga

I didn’t really ever believe it was possible that I could leave my 9–5 job and then make the same amount of money. I was trying my hardest and giving it a go, but I still couldn’t believe that it was possible.

I read a book or something about goal setting… And instead of, when you meet someone new, and they say “what do you do for a job?”… instead of saying “I’m a paraplanner” I started saying “I’m an artist” trying to con myself into believing. That does just change your mind. I think that helped.

It’s like that principle of The Secret. If you tell people “I’m an artist” they go “oh I need some artwork”. You’re promoting yourself.

Embracing Imposter Syndrome Pros — JESWRI

I try and twist things to make it an advantage. I look at things, like imposter syndrome… I judge myself all the time. For me, I still get it really badly. I’ll get a really good job, and it’s going to put me onto another level, but I’ll still go “am I deserving of this? Have I done enough to make me feel kind of worthy or ready or ready in the eyes of other people?”

I think that imposter syndrome is great, I see it as an advantage because I don’t think a lot of people get it, and most of the people who get it are creatives. You spend so much time judging yourself, and I think that is the advantage. By the time you’re finished judging yourself when you’re ready to put it out in the world, who cares what people think. If anything, you’re going through a million people worth of opinions in your head before it’s out in the world. So if one person says “I don’t like it” it’s like “fuck, I don’t give a shit”. It’s a complete blessing.

Everyone who loves what they do is always going to be hard on themselves, and that is the beauty of it, I think. That’s when you know you love what you do.

Header image is the fab work of JESWRI.

Imposter Syndrome In The Arts | Who’s Had It And How They’ve Persevered was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a nutshell, the graffiti community is pissed. And the reasons are many. If you follow mainstream media, you’re probably getting a confusing message on what those reasons are.

Let’s run through the events.

On the 8th of February, the Graffiti Removal Day crew held a media launch in front of a mural of Shane Fitzsimmons, who is the Head of Resilience NSW, and the previous Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. He is also an ambassador for Graffiti Removal Day.

In this media launch, the artist, Sid Tapia, made a few remarks that he undoubtedly wished he could breathe back in at the exact moments he was speaking them. He raised a traumatic story about how he almost lost his life doing graffiti when he was 13, to try and indicate that he is aligned to the graffiti scene. Then he went on to talk about how he is so fortunate to be able to now use his gifts to be able to “bless communities, rather than annoy and frustrate communities.”

Fair enough, right? He wouldn’t be the only one with those opinions, but the backlash really for Sid is that he benefits from the graffiti community. His long-dead connection to it gives him his credibility as a street artist.

Problem is, he essentially shat on the community that allowed him to have his #blessed life and perpetuated the tension already existing between graffiti and street art communities — implying that one is somehow better than the other, despite the oppressed one giving rise to the praised other.

The fact that this campaign is using “street art” to erase graffiti is in itself problematic. It’s coopting one and using the coopted version to eliminate the other. Which really ties into a topic we often discuss here, how safe art is killing street art.

To try and get a more informed perspective on the situation, we spoke to established Sydney graffiti artist, RJ Williams, over on the Street Art Unearthed podcast. You can listen to the full episode below, or read on for excerpts about Graffiti Removal Day and why exactly it’s got people so pissed.

It goes without saying that any comments by RJ and I are our own. We can’t and are not attempting to speak for an entire community.

I don’t speak for everyone, but from my best perspective, we were told by Sid Tapia, who painted Shane Fitzsimmons that he was painting it in honour of victims and volunteers of the bush fires. But Shane was not a victim. He was not a volunteer. He earns $500,000 a year.

Go to the graffiti removal day page and Shane Fitzsimmons is actually an advocate for that. There’s a little video of him. So what Sid was actually doing was sucking up to the guy who is the head of the graffiti removal movement. He wasn’t painting Shane because he was anything to do with the RFS. He was painting Shane because he was part of anti-graffiti day.

He insulted all of our intelligence by telling us the piece was honouring bushfire victims.

If that’s what it was really about, wouldn’t you have some child crying, or have that guy from Nelligen who told Scott Morrison to fuck off? Not only does he dance on the deaths of rural Australian’s but painting something in the city… If you’re going to paint something to pay tribute to rural Australia, wouldn’t you paint it in rural Australia for a start? Wouldn’t you take the money you got paid for that and donate it to rural Australia?

There are so many levels of what’s wrong with that.

The Artist

All he needs to do is have some humility and say “I fucked up. I’m so sorry I upset all of you because I care about you people because I consider myself part of your community beyond my branding and just saying I’m part of the community. I actually want to be a community member, and I want to apologise to the community I’ve upset..” It’s as simple as that. And he hasn’t done that.

Scott Morrisson’s government is a government of no responsibility. I know they hired Sid to be their fall guy. They’ve got round the clock security on that painting because they care about that painting — because it’s their painting. They don’t have round the clock security on any of Sid’s other paintings. They don’t care about Sid. He got used by them.

The Wall

Globally it doesn’t matter where you paint. If you turn up and the building owner has given you the spot, and you get there, and there is someone else’s stuff there, it is part of the culture, and always has been, you contact that person and say “Hey bro, there are tags on your piece. They’ve offered me five grand to paint the wall. Is that OK with you?” If they turn around and say “No, that’s not OK.” Then you turn around to the client and say “I’m not painting it. Sorry, bro. This dude’s a legend. It’s his spot. I’ve just let him know his piece has been damaged. He’s coming back to fix it. I’m out.” That’s global.

In graffiti, 100% it’s that way at all times. There’s a lot of commercial artists that seem to think they get to sidestep the courtesy because they’re getting paid money…

There are some real snakes in the grass coming through in Australia at the moment. This probably comes from our current political climate. We have a very dishonest, fake conservative right-wing government that pretend to be Christians when they’re really just dirty capitalists doing deals with their mates.

What Art Belongs on the Street

Not only is graffiti the oldest art form in the world, but it is also currently the greatest art movement since pop-art. Then you’ve got establishment people, like the Archibald vibes and portraiture dudes, saying “Oh, well if you can conform to our thing, then we can let you be the biggest” and it’s like “Well, no. Fuck you. We’re already the biggest, and it’s not about portraits. It’s letterform. It’s colours. It’s the art of not getting busted. The art of rebellion.”

Whether the establishment likes it or not, that is the biggest art movement of all time: the oldest and the biggest of our generation.

In the same way that record labels try to make hip hop into pop music, is how councils and grant givers try to make graffiti into muralism and try to make it portraiture. And that’s wrong.

Graffiti is meant to be whatever you want it to be. It has its own set of rules. You adhere to that. You adhere to the rules of your tribe, the culture. You don’t adhere to the expectations of a client or a government body.

Portraiture belongs to the Archibald Prize. It belongs in the gallery. It doesn’t really belong on the street. Advertising belongs on a billboard, or on the television. It doesn’t really belong in graffiti.

Impactful Portraiture vs Portraiture for Popularity

People who have done their dues on the streets, they get a pass, but you don’t get that from day one.

Faith and Bohie just did a great bush fire piece in Canberra. Portraits as a whole are not the problem. The problem is people who paint portraits for popularity. They’re painting that because they know that average Joe Nobody who has no gratitude for the whole thing will like it.

If you’re not pushing the envelope and speaking for the community at large, then just fuck off.

What’s Up With The Graffiti Removal Day Fail was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For RJ, passion number one is graffiti.

With graffiti under assault by the government and conservative community, often painted in a poor light, RJ was keen to have an open conversation about what attracts people to graffiti, what the culture really looks like, and how people are expected to behave when they participate in the scene.

Whether you’re new to graffiti or well immersed in the scene, RJ shares interesting perspectives and stories to keep all sides interested.

You can listen to the full podcast with RJ below, or read on for excerpts from the conversation.

Starting Young

I did a t-shirt for a company called Hound Dog. Not many people are old enough to remember Granny May’s. It was a nick-nack store in Westfields back in the day. That was the first t-shirt I did in 1992. It was a dude snowboarding because that is what I was doing at that time. Big 90s pants, shell-toe shoes.

Through snowboarding, I met a dude called Pete Murphy, and he was running a tour company that was blowing up. They were doing the first snowboarding tours to Japan, and they did the t-shirt in collaboration with Hound Dog. Hound Dog had an account with Granny May’s, and they said “Can we stock Granny May’s” We said yes. I was 12.

That rolled onto the next job and the next job and the next job. It was confronting because you were around people who were much older. You got introduced to drugs and alcohol when you were very young.

I think a lot of people made a lot of money out of me in the early years. I went from that to designing some of the early ranges for SMP and SMP blow up and ended up in General Pants. They made a lot of money, and I just got free clothes.

If I was looking at that by itself, I got ripped off but looking at it 30 years later that just prepared me for how people will treat you. I just learnt it earlier than anyone who went to art school and is 25 getting ripped off having people say “Oh, do it for exposure.”

Getting Into Graff

Before I was really noticed was a lot later than others, probably I was in my late 20s. I’d been illustrating since I was a kid. At that time, I was living in the mountains snowboarding. There are no trains there and if you pick up a spray can you go to jail the next day.

My introduction to graffiti was in America travelling for snowboarding. Los Angeles has always been a very big influence on me since I was 12 years old since I started touring snowboarding.

I was doing those first illustrations to save money to go snowboarding overseas, and then I get over there, and I see the same style I was drawing in painted on walls and I was like “Ah, I want to do that.” The inspiration started then, the participation started then, but the recognition was probably not until I built my first shop, and we had legal walls. Then I could facilitate much more established artists in my space, learn from them.

I was probably 28 before people started noticing what I was doing with a spray can, but I had been fucking with it since I was a little kid.

Creating an Icon

That came from painting with Porky and Riz. They already had a piece that was really recognisable, and I would just tack on the end with a character and add a background.

At that time, no one was hitting the streets illegally with a piece that was a character and background. They were all throw up or tag.

It wasn’t until 10 or 15 years ago that Beastman was blowing up, Phibs was blowing up, Kid Zoom was blowing up with really photo-realistic stuff, and there was no one doing what was traditional, so I was like “Oh, well I’ve got a character. You can do a piece, and we’ll go out and do it on Paramatta Road or find a nice red hot spot and spend longer there and add more colour and make a name for ourselves.” He sort of came about from that.

He’s something that’s just really recognisable and really fun to paint.

The Fine Art of Graffiti

A big part of the art form is not getting caught. So, there’s a “fine art” in not getting caught. And when you do get caught, there’s a fine art in court — not going to jail.

You’ve got to finesse the street, you’ve got to finesse the system. You’ve got mates, and you’ve got to finesse them so that they’re not making too much noise and getting you arrested.

The fine art behind graffiti is something you don’t necessarily see in the painting. If you’re in it, you understand it, like “Wow, there’s not cutbacks there.” “Wow, how did he paint that location?” “How did he get all the way up there?” That’s the fine art, and unless you actually try to do it, you have no appreciation for the fine art behind graffiti.

There is then a fine art in putting it on the internet and not getting arrested.

Rules Have Changed

I think a lot of people read things like a Henry Chalfant book with Martha Cooper or they watch Style Wars and they read those rules and say “You can’t tag over a mural” and it’s such a basic 1978 thing to say.

It’s not 1978 anymore. They were talking in graffiti terminology. So, when seeing a mural (back in the day before murals were commercialised), like a full-sized wall, you can’t just go and do a tag over that. They’re not saying you can come straight out of art school, paint a portrait of some idiot and it’s going to be OK.

People take a lot of those initial things that were taught in the early days, the first things you could access, they take those things out of context and just apply it. I don’t think that’s valid.

You’ve got to remember that graffiti has a pretty serious criminal element to it as well. It can attract some pretty gnarly characters, like people who will turn up at your house with a baseball bat if you do the wrong thing. They won’t blink. So I have an obligation to maintain integrity and not fuck with that. So for a young artist dabbling in this stuff and thinking that it’s all airy-fairy and you can get away with whatever you want, it’s really not like that.

Graffiti = Therapy, Community, and Escape

A lot of things. I think it’s a form of therapy. It attracts a lot of people from broken homes, a lot of people from good homes that are toxic environments. It’s a form of escapism for a lot of people. It’s a way to find your tribe. It’s a way to say “Hey, I was here” and feel like you have an identity that’s bigger than yourself, so it’s a way of confronting your own mortality.

If I do a painting on the street I know a thousand people who I’ve never met before are going to see that tomorrow — who I will never meet — but that painting helps my life have more effect on more people. Whether it’s positive or negative, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just enhancing your life-force. For me, that’s what it is.

For other people, I know there are guys out there that feel like punching their wife in the face, and they know it’s wrong, so they go out and paint a train. Or they feel like shooting up heroin, so they don’t do that, but they go out and paint a train or the streets or whatever.

I think escapism is a big thing but also creating an identity is a big thing. Finding a group of people who are also misfits, who can understand you because they’ve been through similar shit in life.

There’s very few pussies in real graffiti. 99.9% of the people you meet in graffiti are very real people who’ve overcome adversity in one form or another. As a kid, once you get your head around that, you realise that’s a really good place to go for people who don’t just pat you on the head and say “Oh, it’s OK, just listen to this podcast before you go to bed and eat your vegetables.” You have people who give you real-world answers. It’s that whole find your tribe thing. You’ll find a mentor who’s been through hell and come back and survived.

Some of the guys I look up to today have been through heroin addictions, they’ve been through prison. They’ve been through everything, but now they’re running successful businesses, they have beautiful families, they dress well, they drive nice cars, you’d never know, and graffiti is how they got through that.

To see more from RJ Williams, check out his other articles here, and be sure to follow him on Instagram and check out his website.

Exploring The Fine Art Of Graffiti With RJ Williams was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Turns out, it was incomplete, and perhaps I’m not the only one who didn’t know the entire quote: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

In its complete form, it’s definitely more on point. Sorry for doubting you, Oscar.

Imitation, copying and downright theft are rife in the street art world, and really all across the creative industries. Even at the birth of street art culture, advertising companies used to use graffiti murals as a backdrop for their commercials, paying no money or mind to the art they were using to capture their audience’s attention.

Unfortunately, not a lot has changed.

“Every Christmas Laurie looked forward to polishing his big red balls.”

Whether it’s a wannabe artist mimicking another artist, a creative agency stealing an artists concepts for their campaigns, or a retailer using images of artists work on their products without their permission, this crap goes on all the time!

When you strike gold, everyone wants a piece. But, please, people, imitation is not flattery. It’s stealing. It’s gross, lacking in authenticity, lacking in soul, and it is deeply painful for artists who put everything into their work.

One artist who has experienced this firsthand is Tinky Sonntag. Her hilarious installation street art pieces were an instant hit. She was embraced by street art lovers, the fine arts community, art collectors, and the mainstream. And when you’re doing so damn well, everyone wants some, and Tinky has had to fight off this BS from other artists, creative agencies, and innocent offenders who may not have realised their actions were offensive.

You can listen to Tinky talk about this and other, more fun topics on the podcast below, or read on for excerpts about artists rights and why copying and stealing crushes artists.

Facing Fraudsters

Even now, I can feel myself going red because it makes me really anxious. I absolutely hate it. I get really defensive and protective of what I’m doing.

Most of my artist friends have had copying in some form or another. I found a friend’s artwork on a greeting card in New Zealand, and he had no idea. That kind of thing.

“The icecream run was notorious for accidents. Unfortunately Gareth learnt the hard way that skiing off-piste did NOT mean skiing after a day at the bar.”

There was a more recent situation with a really well-known artist, too. He’s got a very big following, and he spotted his artwork on a rug or like a big carpet that was being promoted and sold. He was lucky in that he had a platform where he could really call it out and ask his followers to go for it, comment on there, like “Could you please comment and tell them why it’s not cool to do this?”

It happens all the time, and it’s basically an insult. I think people forget that.

There are situations where more than one person can have the same idea at the same time. I’m not the only miniature artist out there, there are people like Slinkachu. There are tonnes of them. I think the difference is I didn’t know about them before I started doing this. It wasn’t copying anyone. And the concept is different, anyway. I’m not saying that people can’t have the same idea at the same time, but directly copying is different.

It’s happened to me a couple of times. And this is the thing, it’s really hard to prove it. Especially when it’s a big corporation, for example, like an international brand, that might have a head office in Melbourne, and the design company is in Melbourne, and they know Melbourne and the street art scene here. Then they’ve kind of taken a similar concept and skewed it, maybe enough, but it’s all kind of using these tiny worlds to kind of make a joke. It’s like, “I know what you’ve done here,” but to prove that…

“The renovation team thought the site foreman’s OH&S rules were a total croc; until Ali decided to scale the scaffolding without a harness. It was a silly snap decision on her part.”

I did actually go down that road with them. And I had incredible support from the street art community and media, but they just denied it. It didn’t go anywhere.

It was a creative agency and, you know, it might’ve not been deliberate, but there were big similarities.

I’ve had a situation where has started doing something very similar and had been following pretty much everyone in Blender Studios except for me, so I know there was a connection.

“Jake had been waiting for his big break in roller derby. Finally, it happened.”

When I raised it with that person, they were apologetic, but they felt that what they were doing was slightly different to what I was doing. It was just the vessel that was different. It wasn’t anything else that was different.

I did go and see a lawyer about that because I’m sick to death of people like that. Like I said to that person, I’m not saying don’t be creative in the street. Knock yourself out, but come up with something that’s not a direct copy of what someone else is already doing, especially in Melbourne.

Artists (Copy)Rights

It’s a grey area. I think there’s a lot been written about these. The lawyer assured me that copyright was definitely broken in this instance. From what I’ve read, generally, if you create a work of street art, in particular, you’re the copyright owner of that work automatically.

Copyright does protect expressions of street art.

“It was always risky when Domikaze practised his sumo tactics in the sculpture park. It was never a good move.”

So I would say, a concept that I’ve led, which is to say, no one else has really done what I’m doing in Melbourne. So if someone then takes up that concept, then it is breaching copyright. This is according to the lawyer I went to see.

Apparently, the copyright protection is just automatic, as soon as your work goes up, whether it’s on a wall or an installation.

Speaking Up For Artists

I don’t know a lot of artists that are really cashed up and can afford to pursue this legally. It’s really tricky. And everyone probably has a different opinion about it. You can go to markets everywhere and see people’s artwork sold. And I know that there’s certainly copyright protection, but then the artist isn’t getting any commission.

Some people do resell photographs of artworks and then give that artist a side payment. There are people that do that, but I would say, mostly, they don’t.

I’ll always say something. If I see someone at a market, unfortunately, will have to hear a little bit from me.

I will do it in a nice way. Some people have just gone, “Whatever. I couldn’t give a shit.” And other people are like, “Oh gee, I didn’t know that I feel really bad.”

“It had been a shitty day for Roger; not the worst, but a solid number two. He was in a stinking mood and just needed to wipe it from his memory.”

Be sure to follow Tinky Sonntag on Instagram and Facebook, and check out her other articles here.

Street Artist Rights | Why Copying Ain’t Cool (Ft. Tinky Sonntag) was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s easy to think of street artists like we do many contemporary artists, imagining some glamorous lifestyle and romanticising the act of painting walls.

But painting walls is hard. It’s physically demanding, artists are out in the elements, they’re working long hours, and usually up against deadlines that demand the physically impossible. Not to mention, in most cases, they’re using spray cans; inhaling chemicals and getting covered in paint and other particles.

This topic first came to our attention when meeting Brisbane-based artist, Jordache, during the Brisbane Street Art Festival’s project in Ipswich, QLD. During our chat, Jordache mentioned that the mural he completed was painted entirely with brushes as he’s no longer able to work with spray cans. A decade of spray can use had led to deeply concerning health effects, and he was not the only one.

When Jordache joined us on the Street Art Unearthed podcast, we expanded on this topic. He mentioned that Askew One was another artist who raised concerns about whether his use of spray cans had led to a thunderclap headache, leading to long-term side effects. So we asked Askew One onto the podcast, too, and got both artists’ perspective on the possible impacts and how graffiti writers and street artists can use spray cans with their health in mind.

Jordache.

You can listen to the full podcast with Jordache below or read on from excerpts around this topic.

You can listen to the full podcast with Askew One below or read on from excerpts around this topic.

Not a Care in the World

“In my career with spray paint, I used a lot of different spray paint. I was using car paint, crap paint, whatever paint I could get my hands on — every type of paint, just poor quality. You grow up, you just want spray paint, it doesn’t matter what it is. If it sprays you can make marks, that’s good enough.” — Jordache.

“I definitely wasn’t thinking about anything like that. I think about what the products look like in the early 90s. In NZ we had a very narrow selection of paints and only one locally manufactured paint that was very noxious. It smelt worse than the rest, and it was very sticky. It stuck to everything. It never really kind of dried and being young you’re really unaware. You find yourself in situations where you’re just so eager to learn and practice that you find yourself painting in an enclosed space, like a tunnel or a friends garage or something and you’re fuming yourselves out and no we weren’t very conscious of that at all.” — Askew One.

Impacts of Exposure

“Years and years of that, and not wearing a proper respirator mask, just being engulfed in fumes, painting in certain spots with no ventilation, times that by a decade, and I guess I really just started to feel it. I felt it, let’s say five years ago, four years ago even. I just felt weird when I’d spray paint.

“I started to get headaches, I’d sneeze a lot, I could feel it in my lungs, and it feels gross on your skin. It really ruins your skin if you’re not wearing gloves or long sleeves, and obviously, if you live in a hot climate, you get a sunburn, and you’re covered in spray paint, that’s not really smart.

Askew One.

“It’s just one of those toxic things, it’s spray paint. Of course, it’s full of chemicals. Obviously, when I was younger, I couldn’t give a fuck. Who cares, I’m living in the now, I’m not living in the old man’s stage. But in the last few years, if I’d use it heavily, I’ll sneeze blood. I’d feel that there’s a taste in my mouth, and I know I’ve used too much.

“I know people who have had really bad health effects from it. Askew talked about it, maybe 10 years ago he had a thunderclap headache like a stroke, which is how he describes it.” — Jordache.

“I met a lot of German artists around 2000–2001 onwards, and they were very, very in tune to this whole idea of looking after your respiratory health and covering up — not getting paint on your skin. I kind of heeded and paid attention to them but at the same time, I would go in and out of being consistent, like maintaining a mask properly and changing the filters frequently and keeping them in an airtight container… It’s not 100% conducive with being a 23–24-year-old idiot that isn’t really thinking things through. I think that is kind of where it was at. A couple of things hit me — a couple of catalysts for thinking about things differently.

“One was that I did have some health issues, and the doctors really never conclusively could say one way or another that was attributed to paint exposure or if it was stress or if it was genetic. I got diagnosed with what they call Call-Fleming syndrome which I realised is just a really fancy name for “we don’t know what it is” its something that marathon runners get from time to time and it can affect people who are particularly stressed.

Jordache.

“Essentially, a blood vessel in my right frontal lobe just constricted and stopped all the blood flow to the left side of my body, so I was paralysed on one side and couldn’t talk, but it was what they call a thunderclap headache. It was really sudden. I was walking to my studio and got rushed to the hospital, but within about 48 hours, I was mostly better. But I had some longterm residual effects that took a few years to resolve.

“One of them was fatigue, and it did seem to get worse when I was using paints.

“I remember one day I was in my studio and someone had a 10-litre bucket of white paint open and I went deaf in my left ear while it was open and it was kind of strange. I get slurry and exhausted really easily. Sometimes the left side of my face would droop when I was really tired. It was a very crazy experience.

Askew One.

“The thing to really discuss is that on the one hand, I was very health conscious already. I was a vegan for a number of years prior to that. I ran frequently. I did yoga. I hadn’t had any drugs or alcohol for almost 15 years at that point. People were so stunned. But then I was also painting frequently without a mask, often in a studio space with a tonne of other people. I had a furniture-maker in there who was sanding things and creating lots of sawdust… people using oil paint… It could have been anything, but it did get me thinking.” — Askew One.

Healthier Painting Practises

“I put it down to paint. It definitely was a big contributor to what spray paint I used. It’s just something I’m so conscious of these days.

“I love spray paint. If I have one medium to use forever, it probably would be spray paint. But yeah, you just can’t keep doing it, unless you have this $3,000 mask. It’s got its face shield, and you’ve got a battery pack.

“It’s just like any trade. If you’re an electrician for the rest of your life or a chippie or whatever, you’re going to buy a good tool. If you’re going to use spray paint for the rest of your life, just invest in it. It’s going to increase your life.” — Jordache.

Jordache.

“There are a few different approaches here. Increasingly you’re seeing people like Adnate and MadC and people like that wearing full respirators, like full visors when they work, because for some people the paint dust really irritates their eyes. There are a number of people who have to wear safety glasses as well as the respirator when they paint.

“I always remember DAIM from Hamburg, when he came to NZ, and it was the peak of summer. When he was painting, he didn’t allow any of his skin to be exposed. He used to wear a hooded jacket tight [around his face], a respirator, glasses, gloves. He didn’t allow any paint on his body. The amount of times I’ve had completely paint-covered hands and dust all over my face…

“If you want to be really conscious about it, there is no such thing as being too careful. Paint exposure can be really damaging for people, and it’s kind of like the luck of the draw because a lot of it factors around your diet, if you have a genetic predisposition towards certain things… There are so many factors that I don’t think people can be too safe.

“Once you’re doing things during the day and on a large scale, also being sun smart, and hydrating properly and stretching! After a while, this work gets really brutal on your body.” — Askew One.

Better Spray Paint Brands

“When I started, it was still possible to stumble over a product with lead in it or use much more noxious solvents than a lot of the paints have today.

Askew One.

“Ironlak has always had this reputation because of its odour, and that’s because they had perfumed the paint in the factory, which is really common amongst Asian manufacturers, but they had actually worked really hard to get any solvent out of their paint, like totally free.

“I think that a lot of paint manufacturers are heading that way, thinking about how they can make their product a little bit safer. But overall, I don’t think that the spray can has really changed that much since the 1950s, just minor iterations and shifts but they’re not radically different.” — Askew One.

Be sure to check out our other articles with Askew One and Jordache for more great insights on the scene.

Healthy Spray Painting Practices (Ft. Askew One & Jordache) was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you catch this article while we’re still in February, be sure to check out the February street art festivals — Hobart’s Vibrance is at the end of the month, so there may still be time to head on down to Tassie.

Otherwise, March festival season is looking great, with plenty of fun events to add to your list for a hunt of fresh paintwork. Adelaide’s Street Art Explosion will continue running between late February, and early March, the sweet town of Tumby Bay is undergoing another artistic transformation, and The Big Picture Fest is coming back to Frankston.

For a look at what’s happening for the whole year, check out our Street Art Festival Guide for 2021.

Loretta Lizzio in Adelaide.

Adelaide: Street Art Explosion

19th February to 21st March

We covered the Street Art Explosion is February’s festival guide, but lucky for the Adelaidians (and anyone visiting) it’s going for quite some time and stretches across both February and March.

As part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Street Art Explosion has been running since 2016 and is the curator to credit for many of the cities’ massive murals.

The event is running between 19th February and 21st March, and you can check out their website for news on the programme.

While you’re in Adelaide, make sure you check out our map for all the existing work in the CBD and Port Adelaide.

Tumby Bay: Colour Tumby

6th-8th March

Colour Tumby is a street art festival that started after the region had a silo painted and saw the public’s wildly positive response. Since 2018, they have gathered artists to activate more walls and have become an annual running festival.

Unfortunately, with COVID, their 2020 plans had to be postponed, but thankfully they have been picked back up, and the dates are locked in for 2021.

Painting the town between the 6th and 8th of March, there will be a COVID safe event. You can check out their website and Facebook page for more information.

Jasmine Crisp in Adelaide.

Frankston: The Big Picture Fest

15th March

The Big Picture Fest started in Frankston in 2018, and although it has expanded to other locations it makes an annual return to Frankston each year and 2021 is no different.

While we don’t know too much about the upcoming event, we have confirmed with The Big Picture Fest organisers that is it locked in, and deets are coming out soon.

Locked in to commence on the 15th March, be sure to follow their website and Facebook page for news on who’s painting and where.

Header photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash.

Australian Street Art Festivals In March 2021 was originally published in Splatrs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.