Painting the Town

*fulfils exercise 15

Graffiti is an art form in Melbourne (and Australia in general).  Rather than having crude messages marring the walls with their jet black words as tends to be the case back home in the States, entire alleyways of Melbourne are dedicated to intricate sweeping murals of graffiti.  These murals don’t detract from the beauty of the city (as some of you might think).  Instead they add to it, bringing out the hidden art culture places like Melbourne are known for.

Almost every city I’ve visited here has at least some of this graffiti, but Melbourne’s was the best and most extensive I’ve seen so far.  We went to see the graffiti on a night where the navy sky was dotted with bright white stars.  The lack of natural light was supplemented by the soft yellow glow of the street lights overhead though and our vision wasn’t affected as we wandered through the city.

I’ll admit when I heard about this graffiti art in the Melbourne alleys I was skeptical (as some of you probably are reading this).  Graffiti as art?  The only graffiti I had experience with was anything but.  Some of the others in our group had recommended it though so off we went in search of graffiti that could be considered art.  Not bothering to take my camera out of my purse I followed Katie and Hailey to the cross-street the others had told us about and my skepticism vanished.  All I could think as I dug out my camera and followed them into the alley was wow!  This graffiti was unlike anything I’d seen back home.

Swirls of baby blue and mix with streaks of neon green and the soft grey of the concrete as you wander down alley after alley greeted by an endless rainbow of colour wherever you turn.  The brightness of the colours, unaffected by the weather was amazing.  There was every colour Crayola had ever put in a box (and I mean the big boxes grade schoolers brag about).  Mochas, mints, lemon yellows, and whispy cloud whites among so many others I couldn’t even begin to name them.

Tropically coloured fish, lavender birds, and human faces stare out from the walls amid lyrics from popular songs daring you to dispute the validity of this art form, but you can’t.  Wandering the streets of Melbourne at night it’s impossible to argue that graffiti can be art.  The murals really are art, they’re not some message thrown on a wall by a sullen-faced teenager, they’re the creations of local artists made available to the public on the walls of the city.