street art
Melbourne is rich with interesting street art and hidden laneways. The urban detritus always catches my eye with the textures and typography from torn posters. This is a great one I snapped with my phone in Carlton.
I'm drawn to the surface of the urban landscape and the overlooked beauty of elements that combine to produce a contemporary canvas. These fragments and details attract my eye and I feel the irresistible urge to record them. From drawings on cave walls to graffiti tags in alleyways, humans have marked their environment from the beginning.
Whether a political statement, an artistic expression, or the tag on an individual, the walls of our cities reflect the layered history of it’s people and a moment in time. Through human intervention and degradation, these layers become a collective collage of the citizens, forming a dialogue between city and people.
By use of the photographic lens, I aim to frame this communication, creating juxtapositions to draw comparisons and thereby create narratives based on social and political commentary. I’m equally intrigued by the abstraction on the walls of the city, both reducing it to impressions and revealing the accidental collisions of texture and intention which exist in cities at every scale.
I aim to celebrate the aesthetic of impermanence and imperfection and to reflect on a moment in time in a constantly changing landscape. I aim to challenge the viewer to look at their surrounds in new ways and highlight the beauty in the decay.
“I AM NOT INTERESTED IN SHOOTING THINGS NEW, I AM INTERESTED TO SEE THINGS NEW.”
I've just released some limited edition prints from my monochrome series, 'Urban Abstractions'. Here is one of them insitu thanks to the wallapp, which allows you to quicky see what your work looks like in a real space. Please email for me details.
In recent months, my friend and fellow creative, Leanne Franks and I started a new project to share our passion for typography and sign painting. We're collaborating to chart out the type and signs of Melbourne's yesteryear. Not only are we drawn to their aesthetic qualities, but they also provide interesting clues about the city's quirky past and social history.
The image below for example, is a recent discovery of a ghost sign in Carlton North, "DeWitts Otis Tonic Tablets". The name was an early twentieth-century product for "making your nerves stronger and your blood richer", released amid the post-WWI pharmaceutical boom.
You can follow the project via Instagram at @thetypeset, and join us as we continue to discover more hidden gems around Melbourne. Enjoy!
Ottis Tonic Tablet - Ghost sign, Melbourne
Tarax ghost sign, Melbourne
Newmans, ghost sign - Melbourne
Vintage Coke, ghost Sign - Melbourne
This image is one from my ongoing 'Urban Fragments' series. Capturing the rich urban landscape of Melbourne's streets has become a consistent source of inspiration for my work. I'm drawn to the layers on the street walls, the accidental collage of torn street posters, the texture and the typography all provide so much visual interest that is so often overlooked. I love the contrast of the pink and yellow against the strong black and white type. I hope you enjoy it too...
After starting my 'Urban Fragments' photo series, I've been finding inspiration from the streets. I'm particularly drawn to the torn street posters for their texture and typography. I like the idea of taking sections of type and joining them together in a new way. With more of a focus of composition than legibility, I enjoy moving the pieces around with my hands until I find a pleasing result. This one is a work in progress, using pieces of torn street posters. I will now scan this in to refine digitally, ready for prints.
I've started a new photographic series documenting Melbourne's urban surrounds. The focus is on the visual fragments surrounding as all on a daily basis, but are often overlooked or ignored. These details attract my eye and I have an irresistible urge to record them.
Melbourne in particular, has a very rich urban landscape of street art, posters, signage and architecture. The torn poster for example, in itself is not all that interesting, but occasionally the elements come together in a way that I find pleasing. This series aims to zoom in on the details and celebrate the ordinary. Here are a few new images shot around Brunswick. Enjoy!
A few more images from an ongoing photographic series I've begun, 'Urban Fragments'. These images aim to abstractly document the ever changing landscape of Melbourne. Peeling back the layers and capturing the beauty in the ordinary that surround us all every day.
Welcome to my new blog! This is my first post and I am very excited to launch an exciting new project. For the past few years I have been fascinated with the urban landscape, and as a result focused much of my photographic work on this theme.
Since moving to Melbourne almost 2 years ago, my eye has become finely tuned on the plethora of stimulating texture, street art and architecture surrounding me. Working between collage and photography, the urban surrounds fuel my creativity within both mediums. The accidental collages of torn posters and the abstract formations of the power lines provide some very inspiring source materials to work with.
These often overlooked and neglected things are a constant inspiration to me and I feel an irresistible urge to record them. As a result, I have decided to begin an ongoing documentary of these abstract designs and fragments that reveal hidden layers, exposed once again to unlock new meanings.... Enjoy!