Acland Court | St. Kilda

“We managed to convince all parties involved that the artists needed some creative freedom. The outcome is one of my favourite murals.”

This one was a biggie. We got The City of Port Phillip on board to fund the project, the Body Corporate helped with the scissor lifts and Haymes Paints donated a whole lot of really good quality paints. The space is an unloved dingy alleyway that stinks of chicken fat from the Safeway cooker. It's littered with needles and the odd angry junky, sex workers working the corner at night and was absolutely hammered with graffiti and pigeon shit.

The traders/body corp and council wanted something to make the lane more inviting and stop graffiti. I was personally of the belief that the space already belonged to the graffiti artists. They were the only ones showing it love by painting their names on it. Instead of taking this space from them and creating some lovely, cheesy, vomit inducing community mural. We managed somehow to convince all parties involved that the artists needed some creative freedom. The outcome is one of my favourite murals.

Mic Porter did an amazing job turning a huge section of the wall into a crazy totem of sorts, Conrad Bizjak did some cubist styled surrealist sexual expressionism (probably a few other isms as well), Cam Scale painted himself painting his piece, and I painted a huge glowing graffiti creature, charging up the wall. There were 10 or so local graffiti artists who painted the length of the wall as well. Best go check it out.

I chose black as the back ground as we needed to brighten up the lane. This may seem counterintuitive but all colours pop when painted on black. It brings the brightness right out at you. I really dug this mural. Painting for a few days in the sun with good people. This is the perfect example that given freedom and trust, artists will produce the best outcome. I mean you don't get an electrician to your house to fix the wiring then tell him how to cut the wires do you?