Footscray Street-Art Prize 2013

"In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.." -Beck, Loser.

Street-Art always has been always been large.. but currently it seems to have gone monumental- both in the scale of works being produced and the number of painters working the scene. I love that advertising billboards are now being directly challenged by original art, however my work is going the exact other direction. Its no criticism, I just have always brought the intimate and personal to the street through my work, comic-blogs and busking etc etc...and my new direction is more a community-project than vandalism and hopefully, it improves or inspires the lives of those who live and work around what I've done to their wall/space. A positive, not negative...hopefully! 

So, for this years Footscray Street-Art Festival/Prize I did a 'Colour-Me-In-Original', with a local flavour (as I lived in that area for the first 10 years I was in Melbourne) with the idea of having the passers by, and hangouts doing the hard-part, the hard-art...the colouring-in. Here's a few scans of the drawing, pre-paste n'community-colour...

Now its up and already much loved and worked-on...I'll go back and take more photos, and fix the bucket for the pencils..most likely replace the pencils...every few days until the prize is over. 

The frame in the background was just to section it off and add some colour to the background so the collage-effect of the paper is more clear and interesting...For details or discussion, please comment or add me pheelix.one/facebook.com

Have a (perfect) day off- Lou Reed..

I was half way through drawing up this one when Lou Reed passed-away..I kinda'never thought he'd die, in some strange way..but was very moved by it, and the media response to it...

So I collage-d into this drawing the MX image of him...this work is in Hosier Lane, Melb-City, 

Thx 'Melbourne-Now' for leaving it up! (fingers X'd) 

So other references: Klimt (patterns/book) a still-life Cezanne-ism...René Magritte and his famous pipe..The roman-catholic catacomb saints, St.Theodore and St.'Incognito' or 'unknown-bone'...I'll take a few more image as it gets worked on by the public, and some close-ups...thx everyone, RIP Lou...

no.5 A two-pine-apple-drawing...fea.Kathleen O'Connor

A collage of many smaller drawings and references but also a tribute- in a way, to the Australian/French artist Kathleen O'Connor (1876-1968) who features in my reproduction of one of her self-portraits in right/centre-image. This one is located on the school where we recently had a charity-auction, Crn of Erroll St/Haines St Nth.Melbourne..I'll update or comment on this one further as it gets more worked on, and is quite big...so I'll get some close-ups too...

'Gorge-Us'

Technically one of my first bits of this ilk-however, for the sake of the order of the photo's it is blogged as #4...'Gorge-Us' at the big flagpole round about, top of Elizabeth St/Flemington Rd...I see it almost everyday on my way into the city on the 59..this is a drawing and stencil, landscape and tagg...

Thx Movida! AKA "sweeet drawin mate, do-ya-do-any tattoos??"

The biggest thus far, this piece was on the side of Movida in Hosier Lane, the infamous graff-laneway in Melbourne's CBD...it's considered a 'green-zone' and therefore not as offensive, or criminal to do street-art, plus all the tours visit there, so it's the perfect place to get people colouring-in!

Was painted over by Makka, Lister and Mayo...all of whom I have the upmost respect for, if not a friendship with so...more to come! stay tuned, follow, tweet..facebook...network...get sharpening!!

no.2 Russel the Muscle...still-life with skull and lamp.

It was my mistake to put this one in a dark, pee n'tagg-fill alcove off Hosier Lane in Melbourne city, the kids mistook it for a photo-copy (pah!!) and tagged over it almost immediately...whatever, I've been doing street-art too long now to not be zen about it, did fix it however before someone else went to pre-skool on it, ah the spring-holidays...I saw the kids doing it too, however instead of walking over there and stompin on them in my suit, I figured what they need is education not violence..

So, this one's gone now too- but had it's time...text in the corner reads:

"If you look close you'll notice a pair of crows have made a nest in one of the towers on the forum theatre, amazingly our cleaning lady at work can hand-feed one of them and calls him Russel..."

Cezanne ate my pine-apple, but I still-life (love) him...

Erroll St. Nth Melb-Park

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about who makes art, who looks at art, and what its all for..just the small stuff, and in response I’ve come up with a small- but hopefully humane approach. We have all coloured-in pictures as children, it seems so basic…yet, would you do that now? On the street? In public? As an adult? Over someone else’s drawing? I’d like you to try, that’s why I use recycled paper and ball-point pens to make original images, basically small posters that I then collage onto the street- and arrange a way to leave a pot of coloured pencils near by.

The aim is to encourage other people to risk being involved in art- of course it’s not legal to begin with but the more challenging idea is if they feel they can work with my drawing. Everyone has a ball-point pen, but not many people really use them artfully-so my aim is not to impress people with my skill but show them how easy it can be to draw themselves…the process being open is very important to me, because this project is about others..I’m just starting it. Plus; I love to watch it change over time, and I repair and continue to work with the pictures as much as I can. I’ll also attempt to record them as much as I can, but if you have progress photo’s- please email them and I’ll add it the ‘history’ of the pieces.

(I'll post them here and on my Deviant-art Gallery)

noncommartproject@gmail.com

This drawing (which has now been cleaned off) was a cezanne-ish still-life collage...and was a bit of a test-piece to see if colured-pencils worked on the paper/wall etc..etc..