Upfield Bike Path Part 2

Moving North from Hope Street along the Upfield Bike Path is a small street full of factories and graffiti. Duckett Street runs East/West and seems typical of the evolving landscape of Brunswick, which is to say it presents us with a mix of new apartment buildings and much older factories.






You can see the new apartments in the background of the image above left. The image on the right is a detail of the distant wall in the above image.












































Mr Miyagi and the Upfield Bike Path



In one of his essays John Updike poses the question: what is American about American art? Is there some essential element that marks itself as an obvious boundary between a work of art that is American and a work that is, say, Australian. He argues that the demarcation point could be more profitably thought of as that line that divides the endeavors of the Puritan White European male from other groups within a society, suggesting that the gap is one of social and economic power rather than nationality.

Fuck Your Blog
The pattern is probably just as true for graffiti and street art. If you saw a bit of graffiti in London, New York or Shanghai, would you be able to tell, in the absence of any other information, the nationality of the individual who completed the work. I would argue that you couldn't. But you would probably know something about them.

Mr Miyagi
Along the railway tracks that connect Brunswick Station to Anstey Station is the Upfield bike path. These images are taken from that stretch of track and they include the above jewel. Mr Miyagi catching a fly with his chopsticks.


For the most part you would not expect these artists to be in their mid forties; practicing law by day while breaking it by night. In the City of Moreland most graffitists are men under the age of 18 years and have a diverse socio-cultural background. Still, graffiti as we know it today grew out of the impoverished inner urban precincts of New York City as an act of violence against society. It grew from within the culmination of of voices whose lives had been relegated to silence in the wake of their communities abandonment for the for the more desirable suburbs. The once lively inner urban environment then became an alienating and impersonal landscape where people could loose their capacity to etch out an identity, whose meaning had once been firmly embedded within the rich diversity of difference that was represented by the various ethnic groups that had settled in and opened up shop (Graffito, Dondi White Style Master General).



"According to Victoria Police statistics, graffiti is the highest recorded crime in Moreland. There are 24 graffiti gangs operating in the municipality. Six of these have become territorial, tagging everything in their paths" (Moreland City Graffiti). 




In my own part of Moreland I am currently witnessing the gentrification of what was once an ethnically diverse and affordable part of Melbourne. Still, while 62% of us were born in Australia; and many of these 1st generation no doubt, there remains a very visible contingent of Italian, English, Greece, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian and so on. With some variation this seems to be typical of Moreland all the way way from North Fitzroy to Pascoe Vale and Oak Park (City of Moreland Profile).






I have noticed a distinct tension between street art and graffiti, in a previous blog I showed where "Dolphins" had covered over a street mural with his or her signature piece stating "Graffiti Lives".


While not a paid piece the above image shows what had once been a photorealistic image that has since been covered over with a variety of forms of graffiti. This is I suppose, as it should be, given the ephemeral nature of the art form but I can't help wish I had captured her face before she was obliterated by the walls subsequent history.







Behind this final image is the Lux Foundry, it is a magnificent building and a good example of how Brunswick and environs are Metamorphosed in a reversal of Franz Kafka's novella: from a large monstrous creature barely understood by those around him, back into a salesman whose primary function is to ensure you feel safe enough to spend a few extra dollars on a Cafe Latte with your breakfast eggs.


Full of Colour - Bendigo Street

Unfortunately it is all too easy to find street art in and around Melbourne. Turn a corner and you are faced with this:

Bendigo St, Collingwood 01

Photorealism

Photorealism in graffiti

Traditionally graffiti has been associated with lettering and figures, as a walk around Melbourne's inner urban streets and alleys will attest. There are, of course, variations on theme as designs bounce around both the visual and conceptual, and the neural and social networks of the various individuals and groups who participate in graffiti. Ideas grow as they are challenged, influenced and reinterpreted to provide something novel from a syncretism of the old. And to be honest I have come to find tagging by itself a little tedious, even some of the bulbous bi or tri-colour throw-ups without any attending comic characters now tend to fade beyond the blurred edges of my peripheral vision. Instead I find myself drawn to the Pieces such as those of the FYG crew or the larger murals which, thankfully, are numerous and various enough to keep the brain engaged.

In Ma'Claim - Finest Photorealistic Graffiti, it is explained how the graffiti of the HipHop movement spread around the world in a kind of cultural osmosis. As its forms and function were adapted by other groups it began to change and in East Germany the Ma’Claim crew started to produce a photorealistic style that, coupled with arresting wall concepts, soon saw new transformations of graffiti art across the world.

For some beautiful images of Ma'Claim's work see here and here.




Driving down Hoddle Street I catch a glimpse of this image looking down onto the car-park of a maternity clothing outlet called Pea in a Pod.

Sackville St from Hoddle
Parked on Sackville

Zombie Clowns & the Killing of Mahisasur

These images were taken the same morning I jumped the fence of the abandoned factory. They occur just around the back of the factory or, more accurately, just behind Moskkito Restaurant. Pity I did not yet have the 14 mm lens yet, although it is actually a 16 mm lens on the D300s. Bring on the mythical D400 with a full frame sensor I say!

Zombie Clowns Dummett Cres 01