All Things Equal Cafe
The best murals always come from complete creative freedom for the artist.
Created for All Things Equal Cafe.
About All Things Equal
All Things Equal is a fresh take on the typical cafe in Melbourne, providing purposeful employment for people with and without disabilities in a mainstream work environment. All Things Equal are on a mission towards supporting people with disability to gain purposeful paid employment, training and work readiness.
HANDSTYLER X BAILER INSTAGRAM COMPETITION
We've teamed up with the crew at Handstyler in celebration of the launch of Wall Stories and are giving an epic prize pack to the best Wall Stories Handstyle!
How to enter the Handstyler x Wall Stories competition
First – jump on Instagram
1. Post a picture of your best "Wall Stories" tag
2. In the caption: tag #WallStoriesComp & be following @_bailer & @handstyler
3. Tag three friends with dope hand styles
We will be sharing our favourites to IG Stories so make sure to also post in your stories and tag us.
The winning tag will be printed on a limited run of Wall Stories T-shirts.
The Winner receives:
- 5 Tshirts of their design
- 1 Handstyler pack of stickers and markers
- 1 Signed copy of Wall Stories
- 1 Wall Stories Merch Kit with hat, t-shirt, tote bag
- 1 Wall Stories laminated poster
There will also be prizes for 2nd and 3rd place (stay tuned)
Enter up to 6 times — the comp and is open to everyone worldwide.
Golden Dragon
Transformed a neglected wall facing Caulfield railway train station into a vibrant asian inspired scene with a golden dragon as per request of the residing restaurant owners.
Shem and Bailer, Caulfield 2022.
“This is a pretty dark part of the commercial area near Caulfield station, it feels much brighter and inviting at night with the bright colours and beautiful imagery.”
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Exhibition Curation: Reconnections at Let's Pretend Gallery
After two years of lock-down, isolated with little support from the creative industry, Bailer collaborated with Let’s Pretend Gallery to invite a diverse selection of artists to curate a very special collection of works while creating an environment for artists to reconnect with one another and with their audience/community/
This impressive collection contained works from over 40 emerging and establishing artists and is sure to stimulate the senses with sculpture, glass, painting, vinyl toys, illustration, print/collage, woodwork, digital art, neon light art and much more.
Reconnections: Group Exhibition Curated by Bailer at Let’s Pretend Gallery
“We need more events like this. Thank you so much for making events and spaces like this available for us to visit and enjoy”
St Kilda Junction Underpass: 100 Artist Mural Project
St Kilda Junction is one of Melbourne’s major pedestrian and public transport intersections. After years of damage and negative perceptions of safety from the community. In November 2021, the City of Port Phillip, the Department of Transport, VicRoads and Yarra Trams engaged with Bailer in order to reinvigorate the pedestrian walkway and beyond to create a brighter, more inviting piece of public space.
Bailer managed the project and event production, coordinating 100 local Melbourne graffiti and street artists to cover the entire pedestrian underpass, tram stops and surrounding walls with vibrant and dynamic artworks to create a warm, inviting space for the local community.
“the junction artworks are the favourite part of my journey on public transport”
“Now the junction is covered in beautiful artwork, it’s uplifting to use the underpass”
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Mixed Messages: Solo Exhibition 2022
Mixed messages : A collection of artworks that fuse conflicting ideas and techniques harmoniously.
In Mixed Messages, Bailer draws inspiration from his personal narrative, the news and current social climate, pop culture iconography, ancient indigenous cultures, and his long standing admiration of traditional temple carvings, paintings and designs. All of these inputs have been absorbed then projected onto various surfaces in a myriad of mediums using a big bag of graffiti techniques honed over a twenty year career. From spray paint and markers, to play-doh and plasticine, Bailer is not locked to one medium. Many of the pieces are covered with epoxy resin, separating them from the viewer as though they are viewing a screen, peering into a rockpool or contemplating stepping through a portal into an alternate universe.
Bailer contemplates the parameters of graffiti - does it exist only when it is illegal? Once the illegal element of the practice is taken away, is there a shift in perception from the maker to the viewer? Why Is street art to be admired and applauded while graffiti is to be painted over and derided? At what point can a graffiti artist exist in the studio without compromising their artistic integrity and history?
Mixed Messages enables Bailer to illustrate his ability to move through multiple art styles with cohesion and fluidity, communicating that starkly contrasting thoughts and feelings can be synthesized through a variety of visual mediums.
Mixed Messages is Bailer’s first solo show of 2022, coinciding with the opening of Let’s Pretend Gallery in Prahan, Melbourne. Let’s Pretend has been made possible with an Arts Grant from the Stonnington Council.
Duality | Solo Exhibit
I titled the show Duality as life and art are in a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Instead of fighting them I am trying to now embrace them. The recurring motifs of the hand and the eyeball fall into this theme of the yin and yang. The eye is the first point of contact. It can show love or fear. The hand can embrace or attack.
Bailer Preparing for Duality.
Over the years I have been involved in many group exhibitions and a few small showings of my work but this was my first proper solo exhibition.
Held at Fortyfive downstairs from 30th Jan till the 10th of February. Duality was an autobiographical collection of paintings, sculptures and resin castings that showed a glimpse into the evolution of my own visual language.
Reading Karen Kedmey’s article - “How to be an artist, according to Louise Bourgeois” I was struck with that familiar feeling that everything happens for a reason. Wandering through Roppongi Hills in Tokyo last June, I was mesmerised by the 10m steel sculpture of a spider that appeared to stand weightlessly in the middle of the Roku Roku plaza. Maman (Mum) by Bourgeois is one of many works that feature the spider motif. Maman captured my attention because it drew parallels with my life. The article references some of Bourgeois’ sketches and notes to support the hypothesis; an artist’s best work reflects their own life. Whether this is done as literally as Frida Khalo depicting her miscarriage, or as cryptically as the metaphors that pepper Dali’s surreal landscapes, Bourgeois stated: “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.”
The themes of the spider and her web; entrapping, repairing, building, changing and even the metamorphosis of her prey crept into my work organically.
Last year I was bitten by redback spiders on three separate occasions. Each time my body overreacted to the venom, requiring a few days in hospital to remove the sizable cysts that had manifested. I figured that this was my pound of flesh to pay for past bad deeds. One of the bites occurred on my painting (index) finger which
needed to be cut to the bone. At first, I was in shock as to how such misfortune could happen not once, or twice, but three times.
While I was recovering, I did some reading and found that if a spider bites you, it is trying to tell you something; if it bites you again then it is something important; with three bites - I figured this must be a pretty big wake up call. Throughout the year my physical and mental health had been in steady decline. Turns out 20 years of spray painting had filled my body with a plethora of poisons and the spider venom was just letting me know that I needed to detox. In a way, the poison was a catalyst that triggered a metamorphosis.
I have longed to expand my personal visual language for many years. It was these critical factors that forced me to undergo a journey of self-discovery to find a new painting method more conducive to a healthy and happy lifestyle. This knowledge that my passion for graffiti art and spray paint was slowly killing me and that I couldn’t use my hand to hold a spray can due to the surgery (removal of spider bites/cysts in index and thumb and broken 4th metacarpal) forced me to begin experimenting with brushes and rollers that I cut into custom shapes to produce repeated line work. You can see the influence my many trips to Asia have had on my line work. This exhibition reflects a timeline that shows the growing pains of a graffiti artist, trying to find his own visual language, purpose/place outside the confines of the underground while still maintaining his own artistic language.
In the past, I have used travel as an escape to deal with trauma or add meaning to a life that had been previously plagued with depression. Last year my trip to Japan and time in Bali helped to shape my new process of artistic experimentation. I had been taken outside of my comfort zone due to sickness and mental health so I decided to also physically and artistically push out of my comfort zone. On my travels, I found ancient Asian influences, adopted some old techniques and created some of my own. This journey through styles and methods has taken me away from sickness and freed my mind. It has been a cathartic process.
The layering of the paintings is literally the metamorphosis of style; the new encroaching on the old. Like an archaeologist’s dig site, each layer could be swept aside revealing another complete work as with the artefacts set in resin. Set like layers in stone, as though each new layer is just as important as the last, yet repainted as soon as it has dried as though none of the layers are important.
Duality is a contested theme in philosophy and literature. As a near bipolar Gemini, I have thought about this concept since I was a child. It was a scene featuring the character “Joker” in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal jacket that hit home for me as an angry young anarchist. When asked why he has a peace sign pinned to his coat and the words born to kill written on his army helmet, Joker replies “I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir. The duality of man, the Jungian thing, sir.”
I titled the show Duality as life and art are in a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Instead of fighting them I am trying to now embrace them. The recurring motifs of the hand and the eyeball fall into this theme of the yin and yang. The eye is the first point of contact. It can show love or fear. The hand can embrace or attack.
I hope you connect with something, if not that’s ok, I really enjoyed making it all.
PAUL “BAILER”
Footscrazy | Footscray
This big wall in the heart of Footscray was painted with a collection of amazing graffiti artists; Duke Marine, Prix, Shame and Korea. These photos show a combination of my traditional letter form with my new textural, linear work.
Bodriggy Brewing Co. | Abbotsford
This is the interior of the Bodriggy Brewing Company, in Abbotsford, Melbourne that I painted with Mic Porter. I was lucky enough to be given the use of a massive artspace to work in with Michael Porter. The guys at Bodriggy Brewing Company in Abbotsford made it happen.
Bodriggy Brewing Co | Image Captured by p1xels
This is the interior of the Bodriggy Brewing Company, in Abbotsford, Melbourne that I painted with Mic Porter. I was lucky enough to be given the use of a massive art space to work in with Michael Porter. The guys at Bodriggy Brewing Co.made it happen.
The building held some history for me; there was a piece by Mic and I from 15 years ago still lingering on the side, and a rooftop by me from 10 years ago is kicking on. It seemed fitting that we ended up spending so much time in there making artwork for our exhibitions.
As a thank you for letting us use the space, Mic and I painted the whole interior of the warehouse. This is a shot of me working away to give you an idea of scale. We are no longer in the space, they’re currently building a brewery and bar/venue there. It looks like it's going to be a great spot for a beer, with a retractable roof for summer.
ft. Sleekone87 | Highpoint
Out at knife point... I mean Highpoint. I think this was the first no letter abstraction where I went all in.
High Point | Image captured by p1xels.
Out at knife point... I mean Highpoint. I think this was the first no letter abstraction where I went all in. This wall is massive. We buffed the whole thing chrome with my Airless Spray Gun. Then I sprayed the shapes for my abstract movement piece and Skeeko's graffiti piece with my black house paint. After that, I just chose a colour palette then ran around adding bursts of colour wherever I deemed necessary.
I had a plan for the moon/circle background and the rough shape of the beast but the rest is all instinct and intuition. This piece helped get me excited about the process again. Sometimes I stagnate when repeating the same strokes over and over again.
This is one of my favourite paintings.