Five Female Street Artists To Watch

Great, I got your attention. I hope some of you are having a laugh.  And I hope, concreteplayground, you might consider some research for next time. Or at least source some photographs this side of 2010. The deer hunters are so 2011.  So much has transpired.  

I will tell you something that is contemporary and has just actually happened, Barek has been to town. And I am confident I am the last person to jump aboard that train. Preprint, Vetti, Dean Sunshine have all covered this already. 

I meant to meet him on the Sunday of his week long Melburn Spraycation but sleep got the better of me. I had promised him an opportunity to get up next to my favourite secret and ancient Ghost Patrol. It remains secret (and in case concrete playground were wondering, just as Miso is not really 'up and coming' neither is Ghost Patrol).  

So, what does a paint spotter do when they stuff up their opportunity to be there when it happens? They pick the next sunny day to meander the streets, on a paint spotter nerd hunt.  So much as happened since I went into semi-retirement, thank you Barek for enticing me back onto the streets.  There is this neat crew called AV...okay, I will stop having a dig. Here's some of what I saw. In 2013. Okay, that's the last dig I promise. 

Hunt Coward

The sharpest piece of political Graff I ever saw was on a wall near the Vic market and it simply read "Hunt Coward".  It was 2005 and "the people" were agitating. It was the beginning of the end of Howard and for me, the end of my early adult years under Liberal reign.

And so we see ourselves here again and I sense you wondering how I am going to weave Street Art into this.  I don't think I can yet. I have seen so little commentary for so long I would be clutching straws to bring you a collection of political pieces.  Correct me if I am wrong.  There has been the Abbott on the wall of faces off Brunswick St but so far as I can tell, that's it.

We have seen complacency in Australia over the past decade and it has seeped into the Australian Graffiti and Street Art scenes.  I partially blame the general bleaching of political activism from the universities under Howard's reign. Voluntary Student Unionism saw the death of the student activist platform that had been an essential voice of dissent. And unionism everywhere was drained of power to leave us with a pile of individually disgruntled people with no collective power.  

It took years for the people to vote that fucker out.  When they did, they were gasping for breath.  Rudd swept in and apologised, finally, for our invasion. "Work choices" was rightly scrapped as a ridiculous blight on the landscape of workers rights.  Mistakes were made, these cannot be denied, but not enough to bring the Libs back in.

When Jules swept in Murdoch machine went into overdrive.  The "she did it" take on the "we can do it" posters appeared briefly but again aside from a few wheatpastes, the streetscape remained apolitical.  We were hopeful for a while.  And then at every turn she fell.  And there was nothing on the street to mark it.  White ants don't come close to describing the media manipulation, she was essentially wading through acid wearing legs of steel.  

So, people, we now have Abbott. FFS. A man described by Malcolm Fraser as dangerous.  A man who all sides of politics describe as conservative.  The man who was never meant to be the leader of the party, now the leader of the nation!!?? And why, because of 'economic mismanagement' or 'the boats' or whatever rhetoric you have heard and chosen to believe?  It's all bullshit. 

 I beg all writers and all street artists to call it as it is.  So whether you voted him in or not, when he reduces minimum wages, say it on the street.  When he diverts funding from hospitals, satirise it. When he reduces taxes on the rich, get angry. When he reduces "the debt" that had meant we had a healthcare system,try really hard not to get sick. 

Just remember, he once described himself as the love child of Bronwyn Bishop and John Howard.  And thanks to Murdoch, he now has a mandate to rob from the poor to give to the rich. Don't let what happens hereon in go unchallenged. Get your politics back on. Hunt Coward!

Ye sow what ye reap

Some people do a shit load of sowing, others seem to do nothing but reap. I haven't been sowing, reaping, Flashing or blogging of late and maybe I am a bit over the reapers. Maybe i am a bit lost for inspiration. I can't seem to see the forest for the trees. So as I gingerly step my recently healed foot forward, and before I get stuck back into it, some of my favourite sowers straight from the archives ... SF, Items and Hits

The Conga And The Whale

 

A child played in the second bedroom, perhaps writing in a diary or colouring in, being careful to keep between the lines. She was perched on top of a pile of old receipts and ledgers. Old like the dot matrix printers that spat out the future with every laboured grunt, as we gazed in amazement. She wore socks but no shoes.

 The kitchen had at some stage been converted to the master bedroom. The morning paper was open and the white sheet was casually strewn upon the bed.  Empty tins of sardines, the remnants of breakfast and as I looked out of the window I gazed upon a handsome woman, perhaps someone that had been loved right in this spot. Idyllic yet I thought the antichrist had been. At least, the right side up.  The wine had been drunk, good times and the light fell, just so, across the walls adorned with art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And then I saw the sky and I could have been anywhere. In my childhood home, colouring between the lines. In my first flat drinking five buck plonk by scented candlelight and sparking up to a backdrop of good friends and eighties house before it was retro. Waking up in a strangers bed, the smell of nightclub on the clothes entwined beside me. Reading the paper on a Sunday, with the sound of someone in the shower and the smell of sex and coffee.

 

And as I stared at the sky that is above all of us I almost forgot I was a voyeur in a squatters world.  There but for the Grace of...

Thank you, props and shout outs at Tom Civil; Ryan McGennisken; Doctor; Be Free;
Suki; and Bon.

OFFICIAL BLOG - Hello World Art Exhibition : Living Life with No Regrets! Ben NAZ

Hello World, if only you were closer.  Ben Naz rises to the challenge again, among other great artists, in a show in California presented by Luna George.

OFFICIAL BLOG - Hello World Art Exhibition : Living Life with No Regrets! Ben NAZ: We just received artwork for the Hello World art show from Ben NAZ  of the UK, and the energy of having this in our hands right now is...

An Ode to the Loyal Fitzroyal

I have loyal followers who spur me to keep writing and in turn I am loyal to local bloggers who inspire me to continue.  I believe in fate the way all optimists do, despite being a pessimist of Woody Allen proportion. Why am I telling you this? Because as I walk the streets of Fitzroy each day, coffee in hand, it is all I ruminate on. I am possibly leaving the place I have called home for the best part of a decade and this leaves me exposed, my ties to Fitzroy visible as strings between my heart and these cobbled alleys.

 
 What is it about Fitzroy and is it's essence still here?  Artygraffarti knows the writers are still here.  The other side crossed over for shits and giggles but that seems to be over.  Rore @ The Baby Farmers laments the giants are fading.  I find myself struggling for material.

                                      
What happens if I move from Fitzroy altogether?  Bill will still run ICI, Michael will still make it his office.  Francis may be there a bit longer, he still has his PhD to complete.  Amanda will still be fabulous and thank God Fitzroy didn't lose her.  Alimentari will still be consistently yum, Atomica will still have the best coffee and the shittest customer service. Actually that is not fair, since I returned from my most recent 6 month boycott the new staff are really sweet, particularly the dudes with the accents.  Nic at Marios will always be my favourite barrista.  Gertrude St will split its Capri pants sometime soon, it is bursting at the seams with 'too cool for school', but that is okay 'cos Smith St will be there to catch the fall.

The crazies, will they still be here getting a meal from the Rose or the Napes and a check in from the neighbours or will they be pushed aside by the middle class hopefuls moving in from the 'burbs and content with paper thin walls and no aircon, just to be here. The Poet, will he still promote the Rose Street Market despite the general public's best efforts to avoid him? The dudes from the flats, will they still be able to sit and share a laugh out the front of Grill'd? It seems to me they have been moved on from there recently. The disenfranchised Indigenous custodians, will they remain safe to get justifiably pissed off with us every Australia Day?

You know what?  As sad as I feel about change, I think so.  I think the essence of Fitzroy will always remain.  Fitzroy is unique. It is more than a suburb we live in, its a badge we wear. It is held together by the loyalty with which the stayers, the Fitzroyal, passionately live within it.  I can't begin to name them but I follow them on twitter, on Facebook.  And how lucky am I, they follow me back. What a place! Pull up a couch, Fitzroy is here to stay.

Marching Disorder

This month has been a year of it.  My feet are blistered in their blunnies and there are callouses the size of dollar coins on my palms as I trudge on through it.  Okay, so that is a fantasy, I think we all know by now I am white collar.  Still the image fits and I am claiming it.
It has been the month that was and it isn't even over.  The wind has demolished country towns. In politics, marching orders were fired as fast as bullets and with equal force. In street art, exceedingly good exhibitions unfolded north, south and centre.  Lia Tabrah rocked a Deb Spoons Croc Off like no-one else could and I defy you not to love her. She is a Goddess and you need to get her art ON YOU!

 

Will Coles wiped the floor with it and so did Slicer. International visitors graced us, and I don't just mean Ellen. Futura was here- I mean fuck!  And of course our ever gregarious Deano entertained him.

 

At a street level the lanes pulsated and so did the resurging can work (commissioned and not so commissioned respectively). In movement of the underground variety, another anniversary has been marked and YAY for the chicks! And  a sore ass for one poor fella but he was appropriately rewarded.  If that is too cryptic for you, then you were not there.  But I was and will be forever humbled by my very generously provided visitors pass. THANK YOU - you know who you are.

I continue to watch in awe as Naz fights his battles with the grace of someone with more strength than 10 of us put together.  That man is an absolute champion.  Marky Wearne remains in hospital and I dedicate this post to Mark, Lou, Simon and Annie.  I feel ashamed that my suburb failed Shaun Wright but proud of the Council dude who didn't let him die alone.  And BTW if you are one of those fuckers with more testosterone than balls and you are reading this, CHANGE YOUR WAYS.  Step back, THINK! The worse thing that can happen is you become a better person.
And by the way, I kinda came out this month.  No more clandestine appearances (well, some). You will see more of my face from here on in. Flasher has arrived. March on I say.

The Sweatshop:

The Sweatshop: made me wanna stay in Townsville long enough to explore, alas, no chance this time.  GO HERE !!!

Piece

Fitzroy has gone a bit Omo bright since around the time that French film crew arrived a few months back and the South mob crossed the river.  Our streets have a hue that wasn't there before (aside from the consistent and long standing contributions of AV of course, and Lush). Call me a Fitzroyal snob but I feel a bit twitchy about us looking a bit too pristine and purdy. That North South divide for all its shortcomings has been good for resisting homogeneity.  Besides, the variable quality of paste ups have given us 'art critics and art fags' fodder that sustained us for years.  Now we have to find a whole new language to whinge about whats getting up in the laneways.   So thank God Lush is back, lushing up the place and generally agitating.  His Legal Bunny had me chuckling Fitzroyally for days...

Manila's Finest

I recently landed an opportunity to interview a graffiti artist I admire greatly.  I wasn't sure how to present the interview as a post, as it was, in the end, a rolling conversation over Facebook messenger. We initially planned to talk on the mobile but for reason of his illness, this interview had to proceed by keyboard only. But as it turns out, it was still one of the best conversations I have ever had.  One of those encounters you leave with a sense of humble awe.  I decided this was definitely to be my first 'biographical essay'.

Ben Naz is what I once thought every street artist was. He is wittingly political and motivated by the cause, whether it be the Philippines, 'Pinoy' identity, freedom, equality, peace or life. As for life, he is arm wrestling esophageal cancer with one eye shut tightly in defiance and the other wide open, focused sharply on his future projects.  He faces each day with fingers crossed and is guided by one principle, and that is to LIVE LIFE WITHOUT REGRETS. His plight is to show the world the Filipino identity, his passion is art and his motivation is the state of the world, globally. I get goosebumps thinking about how awesome this guy is and how lucky the world graffiti movement has been to have him.

Photo courtesy of Ben Naz

Photo courtesy of Ben Naz

Photo courtesy of Ben Naz

Naz tells me he was born in Strasbourg, France. In 1983 as a 5 year old lad, his dad took him “back to the homeland”: Manila, Philippines. Their return saw him in a country that was under Martial Law. He tells me this was the year Aquino, Ferdinand Marcos’s political rival, was assassinated (at the airport that is now named after him).

I don't know enough about the Philippines in the eighties, but Naz does, having experienced it first-hand. In 1994, in his teens Ben Naz emerged as a graffiti artist railing against oppression and fighting for a Filipino identity and freedom. He was not well received by the ruling party who perceived his work as a vulgar attack on the state. 

Naz was instrumental in getting the political message out in Manila, at a time when all street art was considered propaganda by the rightist/rebels. His work was contentious and much of his subject matter, he explains, was considered Taboo. Naz tells me "street art was unacceptable": considered not only to be vandalism but to be a malicious mischief. 

Naz eventually left Manila when he found despite his best efforts that "there was nothing there for me". He returned to France, but ultimately settled in London, where he found his "breathing space".  It is also where he really discovered what was missing “back home” where:
 “we are taught to look in one direction like a blind guided horse”.  He calls this missing ingredient “the sweet sense of democracy” and believes this is “what freedom is all about”.

Until his recent illness, he traveled back to Paris monthly. And he tells me under cloak and dagger that he has BIG PLANS for Paris when he is in recovery but I am sworn to secrecy (I can tell you HUGE plans and that it kills me to bite my tongue).

And that is where Naz is like no other. His treatment is literally preventing him from speaking, but he has no intention to shut up. His prime motivation is to educate people about the plight of those who are not free in this world. Just last December, despite his illness and between chemo treatments, he did a piece about the Gaza conflict. When I asked him about his motivation he explained “I’m trying to educate people and make them aware of what is really going on”. He feels that being a street artist should not just be about putting something different up, but should be about placing something for history.

Naz tells me it was difficult to be a graffiti artist in Manila in the days he began and I can believe it. I am not sure any of us in the luxury of western democracy can possibly comprehend the bravery required to 1. get up as a graffiti artist and sprout anti-establishment opinion; and 2. use imagery considered to be extremely controversial.  But get up he did.  

Naz is pleased to see that in the graffiti and street art scene in the Philippines there is more freedom to express ideas and he puts this down to the power of social media, because, he explains, through smart phones people in the Philippines are able to record their work and spread their message globally.

He is not wrong, there is a strong Pinoy presence in social media, by way of Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and Blogger.  See: Pilipina Street Plan.

So what is next for Naz? Right now, he is focused on his treatment. All going well, his next focus is his art. He has an unending desire to spread a message to other artists and the public. Perhaps the most poignant message he posted to you tube last year was his announcement about the dire-ness of his situation and his reflection on what he has learnt and what he wishes for the world.  Watch here.

If Naz seems wiser than his years I don't think it is all the illness. He has seen things none of us have seen, walked streets we can only walk as tourists, and taken risks that would terrify the most brazen urbex nut. Naz tells me "my experience as an artist and as an individual is something I'd like to share with people" in the hope that it "may help others do the impossible".  I don't yet know what the impossible is for us in the privilege of the west.I suspect his area of concern is in the east. And for Naz, as an individual, the impossible is bucking the system. He won’t be blind sided, he won’t give into cancer, and he definitely will not stop working for the cause.

He offers as this parting wisdom: “stand up for what you believe is right. Express your thoughts and feelings through your work. Show the world that we are all one”.  He adds: 
“Everything I did in my life I couldn't have asked for more. I'm so happy to share things, my experiences, my dreams and my visions for everyone to see through my works. With that I'm happy”.

I would like to thank Ben for his time and the incredible positive influence he has had on me.