Melbourne Street Art


Melbourne has some of the best street art in the world, with many international visitors coming to see and participate in the street art culture. Many suburbs of Melbourne now protect large areas of what was previously thought of as vandalism. International artists such as Banksy place work in Melbourne.

Some of the best inner city street art locations are:

" Hosier and Rutledge Lane opposite Federation Square
" Caledonian Lane off Little Bourke Street
" Union Lane off Bourke Street Mall
" Rear of 280 Queen Street in Finlay Avenue
" 21 Degraves Street
" Cnr Flinders Lane and Cocker Alley
" 122 Palmerston Street, Carlton
" Centre Place, between Collins Street and Flinders Lane

Throughout the 1970s and 80s much of the city's disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York which subsequently became popular in Melbourne's inner suburbs and along suburban railway and tram lines. Melbourne was one of, perhaps the first, major city to embrace stencil art, leading to the naming of Melbourne as the "Stencil Graffiti Capital"and increasing public awareness of the concept of street art. The first stencil festival in the world was held in Melbourne in 2004 which featured the work of many major international artists.

Around the turn of the 21st century, other forms of street art began to appear in Melbourne including woodblocking, sticker art, poster art, wheatpasting, graphs, various forms of street installations and reverse graffiti. Tags are becoming increasingly less popular as the public and local councils alike view street art as an art form and tagging as vandalism. A strong sense of community ownership and DIY ethic exists amongst street artists in Melbourne, many of whom endeavour for the progression of society through awareness created in part by their work.

Many galleries in the City Centre and inner suburbs have started to exhibit street art. Prominent Melbourne street artists were featured in Space Invaders, a 2010 exhibition of street art held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Hosier Lane is Melbourne's most famous laneway for street art, however there are many other laneways in the inner city that have a plethora of street art.

Prominent international street artists such as Banksy (UK), ABOVE (USA), Fafi (France), D*FACE (UK), Logan Hicks,[6] Revok (USA), Blek le Rat (France), Shepard Fairey (USA) and Invader (France) have contributed work to Melbourne's streets along with visitors from all over the world, most prominently Germany, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The Melbourne Stencil Festival was Australia's premier celebration of international street and stencil art. Since its inauguration in 2004 the festival has become an annual event, touring regional Victoria and other locations within Australia. The festival was held for 10 days each year, involving exhibitions, live demonstrations, artist talks, panel discussions, workshops, master classes and street art related films to the general public. It featured works by emerging and established artists from both Australia and around the world.

Since its inception, the Stencil Festival featured some 800 works by over 150 artists, many of whom were experiencing their first major art exhibition, finding it difficult to be exhibited in major commercial galleries reluctant to display emerging art forms. The first Melbourne Stencil Festival was held in a former sewing factory in North Melbourne in 2004. The three-day exhibition attracted spectator numbers far beyond expectations. The Festival was last held in 2010.