Jesse Li-Yates: Graffiti artist guilty for Hunters Hill bridge mural
A well known street artist told cops he thought it was legal to spray paint a bridge wall after being caught red handed. The dad was hauled before court having been spotted by residents painting a prominent bridge on Sydney’s lower north shore.
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An artist who graffitied a bridge wall has told the court he wanted to paint a mural and didn’t know it was illegal.
Jesse Li-Yates, 29, from Hunters Hill fronted Burwood Local Court on Monday on one charge of intentionally marking a premises without consent.
The father-of-one was caught graffitiing a wall on the Tarban Creek Bridge in Hunters Hill at 12pm on May 30 by a resident who called the police.
When police arrived they found Li-Yates spray painting the centre of a concrete wall with a can and graffiti which measured about 4m long and 1.5m high, according to police facts.
“I thought I was allowed to paint here,” Li-Yates told police.
He told the cops he had been spray painting for “several hours” and was planning to photograph the graffiti and sell it as a photograph, according to the facts.
Just moments before he fronted court for his sentence, he shared his court attendance on his Facebook.
“Burwood court today got busted for doing some art,” he wrote.
Yates, who was self-represented, pleaded guilty and told the court he does murals with spray paint and didn't know it was illegal to do so on the bridge wall.
“I do murals up with spray paint. I looked up on a website of legal places to spray paint,” he told the court.
The father-of-one claimed there was “no boundary” when he arrived at the location and said he only saw a fence after he was arrested by police.
“I thought the wall was legal and found out (after) it wasn’t,” he told the court.
Li-Yates told the court he usually worked in a kitchen but lost work since he got back from a trip to India and the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Magistrate Greg Grogin convicted Li-Yates and ordered him to pay a $220 fine.
“If you express yourself by way of art, you do so legally,” the magistrate said.