Since the 1980s, the area surrounding the Sydney inner west suburb of Newtown, New South Wales (NSW), Australia—including the suburbs of Newtown, Enmore, Erskineville, Camperdown and St Peters—has been known for its wide range of prominent graffiti and street art on walls. The public visual art in the Newtown area consists of a variety of styles and methods of execution, including large-scale painted murals, hand-painted (or sprayed) political slogans, hand-painted figurative designs, spray painted semi-abstract designs (including large-scale and elaborate semi-pictorial) "tags"), and other stylistic developments such as stencil art and street poster art (also known as "wheatpasting"), "Yarn bombing", and sculptural items cast from plaster and other materials.
Locations
Street art locations in the greater Newtown area include: Murals facing onto King St and adjoining streets. Stencil art around the photographic studio in Gladstone Street, near Newtown Railway Station. Stencils, slogans and murals in and around the pedestrian tunnel under the railway line, linking Bella St and Bedford St. Graffiti works in the area between Enmore Rd and the railway line, including Gladstone St, the Wilford St industrial area, Wilford Lane, Phillip Lane and Thurnby Lane. Murals, stencils and graffiti slogans in and around Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. Wall art in the vicinity of St Peters Station and Applebee St, near Sydney Park. The multi-panel spraypaint mural on the rear wall of St Luke's Church, Enmore by Matthew Peet (aka "Mistery").
Another example is two slogans painted on the wall of a house on Salisbury Rd in Camperdown, at the Kingston Rd intersection. A large hand-painted slogan that displayed, "Madonna: The Devil Incarnate", was accompanied by a smaller slogan that read, "iConsume". Both slogans lasted approximately two weeks before being painted over.
Artists and attribution
Although several major works are community or private commissions, or were carried out with permission, others are illegal. Artworks are therefore rarely attributed to their respective artists due to the need for anonymity. Another impediment to attribution is the abstract nature of the pieces and identifying "tags" of the creators.
Unmitigated Audacity Productions
Many of the biggest and best-known large-scale murals painted in Newtown in the early 1990s were created by a group of mural artists called "Unmitigated Audacity Productions (UAP)". This group included Sydney mural artists, Matthew Peet (aka "Mistery" and member of hip-hop group, Brethren), Juilee Pryor, and New Zealand-born artist, Andrew Aiken.
Among the past and present murals that can be attributed to UAP are: The "Martin Luther King" mural on King St, painted by Andrew Aiken and Juilee Pryor (with Tony Spanos), now heritage listed. The "Mona" mural by Andrew Aiken, on Erskineville Rd opposite Newtown Post Office; as of 2011, still in existence, but now in a poor state of preservation. The "South of the Border" mural on King St South, near the Union Hotel. The Newtown Police Citizens Youth Club (PCYC) murals, by Matthew Peet and Andrew Aiken; the PCYC was demolished in 2015 and a new apartment complex is currently under construction. The now-erased Miles Davis/John Coltrane mural on Erskineville Rd ("On The Wings of a Song"), painted by Aiken and Peet. The now-erased "Per Ardua ad Astra" mural, painted on the wall of the house opposite the "On The Wings of a Song" mural; the piece is clearly visible from Newtown Railway station. The "Pieta" mural, by Andrew Aiken, painted on the side of a (currently abandoned) house on Erskineville Road, opposite the BP service station. The now-erased "Idiot Box" mural at 64 Erskineville Rd, opposite the Imperial Hotel was created by Andrew Aiken. The large multi-panel mural on the rear wall of St Luke's Church in Stanmore Rd, Enmore, was painted by a team led by Matthew Peet As of early 2016 this has largely been defaced or erased and only a few sections remain. "Deja Vu 1" (1992), was painted on a wall on the corner of Erskineville Rd and Linthorpe St. According to Pryor, it was painted by Aiken " ... in an explosion of rage about the war in Bosnia. The theme is remembrance and the futility of war. On the base of the wall can be seen the words 'Have we already forgotten?'". This mural is no longer extant and the building on which it was painted was subsequently demolished and replaced by an apartment complex.
Juilee Pryor photographed much of the group's mural work and she has donated digital copies of these photos to the City of Sydney's photographic archive on the ArchivePix website