Creating a Visual Language Inspired by the Urban Environment

Walking through the city, I’m always struck by the fragments that most people overlook — a faded sign, peeling paint, rusted metal, or the way posters layer and decay on a wall. For me, these surfaces tell a story about time and place, informing the foundation of my collage practice and the spark for developing a unique visual language.

Built from fragments of my own photographs, this collage reimagines the urban wall as a constructed memory — each colour and surface borrowed from a different place, brought together to create a new composition.

Seeing Beyond the Surface

The urban environment is more than just buildings and streets; it’s a constantly changing canvas. Graffiti tags are painted over, new signs replace the old, and textures shift with weather and age. By photographing them, I capture moments of transition and then recontextualise them through collage.

Collage allows me to take these found details and rearrange them into something new. A single number pulled from a street sign, a torn edge of poster, or a splash of colour from a painted wall might become the anchor of a composition. Each piece is about balancing fragments of reality with abstraction — creating tension between what feels familiar and what is reimagined.

Developing a Personal Language

Every artist searches for their own visual vocabulary, and mine is rooted in the grit and rhythm of Melbourne’s inner north. Over time, I’ve noticed recurring motifs in my work: bold numbers, geometric forms, layered textures, and a push-pull between order and chaos. These elements become like words in my visual language, reshuffled into endless new sentences.

Developing a unique visual language doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from observing deeply, experimenting freely, and trusting that the fragments you’re drawn to have meaning. For me, the urban environment is both muse and material — a reminder that even the most ordinary walls can hold extraordinary stories.

Fragments of the City: An Abstract Urban Collage

Melbourne’s walls are living canvases. Layers of paint, posters, graffiti, and weathering build up over time, creating a visual history that is constantly shifting. Each torn edge, faded letter, and accidental mark tells a story of the city’s rhythm—fast, raw, and unpolished.

This collage is born from those fragments. Using my own urban photography as source material, I’ve reassembled textures, colours, and type into a new composition. The ripped edges and overlapping forms mirror the way the city itself is built: patchwork, layered, and endlessly evolving.

The bold orange block anchors the piece, interrupted by letterforms and textures that suggest signage and architectural grids. Fragments of type—like the partial “EN”—hint at meaning without ever fully revealing it, much like the ghost signs and half-erased words you find while walking Melbourne’s laneways. The mix of textures, from marbled stone to weather-worn ink, echoes the surfaces of walls that have absorbed decades of stories.

What I love about working this way is that the city provides endless material. Every walk through Fitzroy, Collingwood, or Brunswick uncovers new textures—peeling posters, splashes of colour, accidental alignments—that become raw material for contemporary abstract art. These fragments, when reimagined through collage, become something new: a reflection of Melbourne’s energy and impermanence.

This piece, like the walls that inspired it, is both transient and enduring. It captures a moment in time, a set of visual relationships pulled from the city, yet rearranged into something entirely contemporary. It’s urban history translated into abstract form.

Abstract collage series

As an artist, finding new ideas and inspiration is essential to keeping your creative process fresh and exciting. I find that using a sketchbook is a great way to experiment with new ideas without feeling the need to create a finished piece. I also enjoy working in a series, exploring a specific visual language across several works. Here is a little series I created inspired by abstract shapes and a primary colour palette.

Mixed media - Work in progress

Getting back into some mixed media with this piece. Inpsired by the detritus of our urban walls. I've been drawn to working in a mostly monochromatic colour palette with small bursts of colour and torn pieces of type, similar to that of the torn street posters.

I'm going to leave this one for a few days and come back to it for some final touches.

Mixed media on board.

Abstract Mixed Media : No.3

Recently I have become very drawn to abstraction and the visual explorations within the urban environment.

I have always been drawn to the simplicity of line and form of architecture and the abstraction found in the relationship between buildings and their surrounds. Typography and street art provide interesting marks and graphic elements that can be combined to create interesting results. The layering of street posters peeling reveal an interesting interplay with type, creating new narratives.

This piece was created using found torn street posters. The technique of collage and decollage were employed to created a balance of colour, texture and type. The challenge with a piece like this is for it to look spontaneous with a strong sense of composition, without overworking it. Below are some progress shots, tweaking until it feels 'finished'. This quote sums it up well...

'Art is never finished, only abandoned' - Leonardo Da Vinci

DETAIL - Mixed media collage using torn street posters

More layering - Mixed media collage using torn street posters

Final tweaks - Mixed media collage using torn street posters