Writing's On The Wall

Sister Dearest and I are a bit obessesed with street art at the moment.

It comes as I prepare for my last week in Sydney before heading back to Queensland in lieu of my departure. As I visit my favourite places, eat at my favourite cafes and make the most of my final smog-laden breathes, I've been made privy to a side of Sydney which up until now, I've always taken for granted.

I frequently walk past street art but rarely stop and really appreciate it. Maybe it's because I live in a city where everything is on fast forward or the fact that I am surrounded almost entirely by concrete. But you'd think then that the coloured artworks which are secretly painted onto billboards and building walls in the witching hours would stand out amongst the city doom and gloom.

It's not until I take a moment to really look for it that I discover that street art is everywhere. The one-way streets and alleyways which coil throughout Surry Hills are an urban gallery of guerilla artworks. But this is no haphazard vandalism. This is the result of a creative eye and of careful planning. This is the result of a few creative individuals who want to make our city more beautiful and who want art to be available to the masses.

Politicians, city counsel workers and people with no creative appreciation are quick to label street art as grafitti - 'vandalism' by a public nuisance who couldn't keep his paint brush on the paper.

One of Britain's most famous public nuisances is Banksy, a guerilla artists who is no stranger to narrow-minded opinions. His own outlook on politics, war, homophobia, sexism, religion, materialism, advertising (shall I go on?) has been painted, sprayed, glued and 'grafittied' across every possible surface in Britain. The Metropolitan police consider him a vandal and his work an eyesore. What Banksy is is a libertine who believes that the true defacers of public property are the advertising giants and political executives who's slogans contribute to the inadequacies which filter through our lives.

It may not be quite as serious in Sydney, but the city's most famous creative milieus - Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Newtown - have gained their fame courtesy of the creative types who push boundaries (and buildings) with their artworks. It's why people - executives, lawyers and bankers alike - flock to these suburbs. They set up their houses and fill them with brands and BMWs and material goods and relish their being apart of such a socially-distinguished suburb.

Ironic really, given the messages these urban artworks were painted to promote.

Ciao for now.

(Image Credit: Banksy and Darlinghurst Nights)