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.
