Melburnians are famously proud of their city’s prolific street art. But when Neda Nikolic found the world’s largest online urban art community that maps such works, she noticed Melbourne was underrepresented.
So, two years ago, she teamed up with friend Andrew Haysom, and later Lia Arraiano, to add Melbourne’s murals to the Street Art Cities database.
Lia Arraiano, Neda Nikolic and Andrew Haysom at the Jacinda Ardern mural in Brunswick.Credit: Joe Armao
Today, Melbourne is the No.1 city in the world for total street art recorded on the platform, with 3639 masterpieces logged – up from being ranked 43rd in July 2023. This Victorian trio says it’s added 3272 works.
“We’ve got so many wonderful artists across Melbourne,” says Haysom, who became Street Art Cities’ Australian manager this year. “That’s why this city’s scene is so special.”
In May, the trio lifted Australia to No.1 for total street art on the platform, which only accepts select “hunters” with adequate photography skills to capture art and describe a work’s location and background.
“It’s very addictive,” says Nikolic. “This is like the Olympics of street art.”
Melbourne’s contemporary street art scene has also changed immensely in recent decades: First, there was the underground graffiti subculture of the 1980s and 1990s. Then, there was the Banksy-boom of stencils in the 2000s. Later, major murals took off in the 2010s.
But the first big wall-art installation, which helped kick-start the large murals across Melbourne today, was famed New Yorker Keith Haring’s work at Collingwood Yards, which is now heritage-listed.
“That was the very start of street art in the city,” says Dean Sunshine, who published two books about Melbourne’s street art scene.
“There are only a handful of Keith Haring murals left in the world, so we’re very fortunate to have that here.”
Sunshine runs a business in Brunswick and has become something of a street art patron, offering his walls to artists as a free canvas.
Controversy erupted here a decade ago, however, when a Kama Sutra burger mural that depicted sex acts drew council ire. The municipality’s push to “edit” the work then sparked backlash from those who decried artistic censorship – a familiar story in Fitzroy, where a mural depicting a woman in bondage became the subject of outrage in May when women’s safety activists campaigned to have it removed.
Sunshine is wary about street art becoming more official and mainstream.
“Melbourne strives as a city filled with lanes of street art, which generates lots of tourist income,” he says. “But you cannot have a street art scene without acknowledging the graffiti culture that was here first.”
Sunshine believes Melbourne’s street art peaked in the early 2010s and says he isn’t a huge fan of the more recent silo art in regional Victoria, which has become a tourist bonanza.
He is also a little less excited about the spread of council-driven murals and organised street art festivals, like those held in Frankston and Mordialloc this year.
“For me, it just goes against what the initial scene was about – artists going out and painting for the love of it, not for money,” he says. “But then again, these days, the artists are actually getting paid for their work, so that’s definitely a positive.”
Shaun Hossack, meanwhile, founded Juddy Roller, which curates art – such as Adnate’s mural on a Collingwood public housing tower – for developers and councils.
Shaun Hossack, founder of Juddy Roller, an award-winning street art network at Adnate Mural Collingwood.Credit: Joe Armao
“Melbourne is very much fixated on realism, portraiture and almost literal depictions of life,” Hossack says. “Whereas I think European artists are more informed by a more abstract and gestural aesthetic.”
Tyrone Wright, better known as Rone, got into street art through skateboarding in the early 2000s.
He creates major immersive displays, such as Time, which took over the entire third level of Flinders Street Station in 2022.
But before that, he was part of the Everfresh Crew in Melbourne’s inner-north, an influential street art group that created long-lasting murals such as Welcome to Sunny Fitzroy off Johnston Street.
Tyrone Wright (aka Rone), a prominent street artist, in front of his Welcome to Sunny Fitzroy mural just off Johnston Street.Credit: Joe Armao
“There was something amazing about those times. It was great to see that we influenced people,” he says.
“[Street art] changes so often. It may not be there tomorrow. That’s what made me fall in love with it in the first place. It’s an exciting art form.”
Gumbaynggirr woman Aretha Brown is among a younger generation of muralists who did not emerge from the graffiti scene.
Her first mural on Melbourne’s streets was on a shipping container at Footscray station in 2019. She is now preparing for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.
Aretha Brown with her mural on Collins Street back in 2022.Credit: Simon Schluter
“Aboriginal women have been doing public art for ages if you include rock art, which I do,” she says. “I’m just using paint from Bunnings instead.”
Portuguese-born street art hunter Lia Arraiano, who moved to Australia from France 18 months ago, reckons this wide range of murals makes Melbourne unique.
“There was a bit of it where I lived,” she says. “But here, the quality of the street artists is exceptional.”
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