Street art and murals booming in fringe communities across Diamond Valley
Communities are banding together to bring Melbourne’s booming CBD street art scene to the quiet streets of the city’s outer-northeast. Check out some of the best designs.
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Bland residential fences and walls across Diamond Valley are being transformed into vivid murals of native wildlife and local icons.
The masterpieces are bringing Melbourne CBD’s thriving street art scene to the urban-fringe communities of Nillumbik.
Diamond Creek’s Josh Allen organised artist Satoshi Sasayama to paint four murals in the community.
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The talented creative’s latest job was transforming a lifeless grey wall in the Diamond Creek IGA carpark into a colourful expanse of rural landscape and native animals.
Mr Allen said the idea to organise an artist to create more murals in the area was part of a plan to help Nillumbik businesses.
“I am part of the Diamond Creek Tram Project and many local businesses helped raise funds so we could get one of the decommissioned State Government trams to feature at the new playground in Diamond Creek Reserve,” he said.
“So these murals are a way to get more people into town and hopefully they spend more money, which will bolster the local economy and reward those local businesses for helping out.”
Mr Allen expected the murals to be major drawcards for the area.
“Everyone loves them,” he said.
“We have so many people coming up to us and telling us they want to see more.
“And the more murals there are the more attractive this area becomes so hopefully they can entice more people to come to our town.”
Mr Allen said a different artist will paint the next planned mural at the old ambulance station wall behind Bendigo Bank.
Sasayama started work on a mural at Diamond Creek East Primary last week as part of the school’s anti-bullying campaign.
While Diamond Creek is quickly emerging as the municipality’s hub for street art, impressive murals can also be spotted in other pockets throughout Nillumbik.
WENSLEY & CONISTON ST, DIAMOND CREEK
What was once an ordinary brown residential fence is now a colourful wall of the area’s native flora and fauna.
Sasayama, of BombG, also depicted the tangerine glow of our summer sunsets as the backdrop.
This mural at the corner of Wensley and Coniston St was the Japanese artist’s first paid job.
DIAMOND CREEK CFA STATION
The evocative image provides an insight into what Diamond Creek CFA brigade firefighters and other fire crews must encounter almost every day.
Sasayama’s mural depicts fire crews battling bush fires in the nearby Kinglake Ranges.
It was the creative’s first attempt at painting a vehicle on a public medium.
PICCOLO MECCANICO, DIAMOND CREEK
Sasayama has crafted another impressive mural above Diamond Creek coffee shop Piccolo Meccanico.
It features an alien sipping a long black, chai latte, beetroot latte — depending on your perspective, but nevertheless it’s sipping the brew all Melburnians love.
And paired with art, one of the pillars to our city’s success, it completes the clever combination.
SALON VIE, HURSTBRIDGE
The woman with the red rose inside Hurstbridge hairdresser Salon Vie is commonly identified by neighbours in the Melbourne fringe suburb as the ‘lady from the salon’.
Owners Bianca Karakaltchev and Bron Jarvis said the artwork inspired by a French model from the 1950s brought an “edgy” feel to the salon.
Hurstbridge artist Harley Scott also spray-painted the mural of the man and the red rose on the wall outside the salon, in the carpark.
BUNDOORA SQUARE, BUNDOORA
Bundoora Square’s first mural depicting the suburb’s native birdlife can be seen from Plenty Rd.
The impressive mural also paints the picture of the Bundoora Shopping Centre when the first settlers arrived in the area.
This mural can be seen on the ANZ Bank wall in Nickson St and was created in 2005.
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