High and low, under and above, inside and outside, protected and exposed. The city presents innumerable contrasts, all of which can provide opportunities for intrepid artists. From graffiti writers marking spaces no one else sees as useful or functional, to street artists creating moments of engagement in unexpected places, a city is always full of sites to explore and alter. From rooftops to wooden hoardings, lampposts to stop signs, revealing, playful and existential interventions can be found across and beyond our lines of sight. This diversity of locations is matched by the diversity of practice, with no material form invalid or off-limits; Chero One’s rocket ships, painted scrolls, or even hot sauce-filled buttons warning you not to do what you so urgently want to do. Always mimicking the visual culture that we come to expect, such interventions play on our tendency toward assumption. Popular culture rifs depend on your recognition of trends and eras, like digital memes, requiring some savvy understanding. Anti-advertising grasps the ubiquity and absurdity of commercial communications. Graffiti is an expected response to our dictum that success means having your photo on a billboard or the back of a bus. Ultimately, the streets are full of life, both official and unofficial, you just have to look closer and further, higher and lower, under and above, and start to sort out the relationships…
Toothfish Posters make the existential environmental discourse public
While small stickers remind us of some enduring truths
All of you, most of you, some of you, none of you… The words of a Lord Huron song evoke the changing nature of relationships on a small scroll banner, best encountered at night
Lost among the barbed wire of the city
Mike Beer’s Do Not Press buttons appeared across the city, daring you to disobey (those that did were met with an ooze of sriracha sauce)
Cheros’ rocket ships require closer inpection on take off…
And as the fungi grows…
Funky traffic management by Akeem the African Dream, a paste-up by Bols
Step to the Exit keeping heads above the clouds
One really has to wonder about the impending end of the world some days…
The passage of time can make for the best curation (featuring Bongo, PK, Teeth Like Screwdrivers, Cape of Storms, Morepork and more)
As can carelessness.
So it helps to break things down and start over, maybe with a plan (like Teeth Like Screwdrivers)
And then just find your place in the world
Analogue memes, with Vez, Teeth Like Screwdrivers, LARFN, and Bexie Lady
Vez’s spoon radiates with light
Lyds’ flowers are a simple, stylised, beautiful presence in the urban setting
Cape of Storms invites us all to Taco Tuesday, where the conversation is always frank
While MFC Lowt perfects the art of glam rock…
Brandon Flowers gets political…
I can’t see anything.
Something so kiwi about this… Suzy Cato and burn-outs
Ghost Cats haunt the city
In New Brighton, the Couplands Laneway stays fresh, this time with work by TBE crew (PK, Oxy, Sucker, Foul, Vesil)
Location, location, location (Vesil, Look)
Juxtapostion, juxtaposition, juxtaposition (Dofey and PNS)
It’s all about angles with Vesal and Dregs
Fuk Toes…
Keep your distance, but always know where you are (IMK)
While Watch This Space was founded on the concept of mapping out Ōtautahi’s street art, and our online map has been primarily populated with commissioned murals, we have always understood and celebrated the importance, urgency, poignancy, rebelliousness, hilarity and, basically, goodness of guerrilla graffiti and street art. In a time where urban art faces an identity crisis, the power of bypassing permission and making or installing art in the streets, from an elegant tag to a pasted pop-culture riff, is necessary and energising. As a reflection of this belief, welcome to Street Treats, a new recurring series that tries to capture the authentic spirit of urban art by collecting our favourite works of guerrilla art and presenting them to you.
The events around the world in recent weeks have rendered an environment of energy, of action and of hope for change, sentiments that graffiti and street art have also sought historically. Striking images of graffiti-covered walls and monuments have served as iconic backdrops of a time of social revolution, but also a reminder that writing on walls, artistically or not, is a way to attack the structures of our social contracts and the injustice they often protect. The images in Street Treats – Vol 1 are not exclusively political, but they do share the rebellious motivation of bypassing consent and altering the urban environment in which they have been placed. In each case, someone has chosen to bypass authority, to subvert and surprise, to add a voice to the street, as a secretive whisper or a defiant yell. Either way, it pays to listen…
While the US has been the epicentre for the BLM and anti-brutality protests erupting in the wake of constant tragedies of black lives lost at the hands of police (George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshad Brooks and countless others), the social movement demanding change has spread across the globe, and weeks before the BLM hikoi on June 21, messages were spray painted around the city. In these cases, aesthetics were second to the urgency of the message…
All Power to th[e] People on Colombo Street. In some ways the misspelling further highlights the emotional undercurrent.
This small paste-up by Bols in Rawhiti Domain in New Brighton, featuring the surly profile of 1980s wrestler Bad News Brown, is a reminder of the widespread stereotypes of people of colour, something that continues to feed into the daily experience for many, either as the target of such perceptions, or those influenced by such presentations.
Bols’ Basketcase basketball singlet in North New Brighton delves into the nostalgia of popular culture. Drawing on the John Hughes film The Breakfast Club (The Brain, The Athlete, The Princess, The Criminal and The Basketcase as a starting five), it uses the retired jersey tradition to speak of growing up.
Blink and you might miss Porta’s well-dressed gentleman taking in his surroundings in New Brighton. Tucked away and displaying the retro stylings Porta does so well, it is playful and yet strangely poignant.
Dr Suits’ collage paste-up in New Brighton was one of many made by the artist during lock down. Expanding upon the smaller stickers produced at the same time, these large paste-ups become installations to take in from distance and close up, with striking effects and intricate details, including the layering effects of the collage approach.
The paste-ups are already beginning to influence the next evolution of Dr Suits’ studio work, this work becoming a print series, combining a digital image of the work with hand-filled elements.
Fellow Fiksate artist Jen_Heads’ love head continues a rich vein of expression the artist developed during lock down. This piece, spreading love to the neighbourhood of North New Brighton, was joined by a equally pink OLIVE tag.
This colourful Jen_Head evokes a kaleidoscopic pattern, with multiple eyes to see all. Located on New Regent Street, the paste-up is kept company by Jeremy Sauzier’s shadow figures and one of Teeth Like Screwdrivers’ ubiquitous pencils….
Speaking of which, Teeth Like Screwdrivers’ ‘fake buff’ pencil slap in the central city takes the recurring icon in anew direction.
Vez’s spoons are equally as recognisable, the collage pieces display an almost absurdist sense of humour with an inviting inclusivity, and are often collabs with other artists.
While Vez constructs new images from various media, the re-contextualised paste-ups by a secretive artist found across the city draw on the existing image from different sources in juxaposition with the surrounding environment to make their statement.
These Hot Lunch posters combine a lo-fi aesthetic and mysteriousness with a dirty joke, and its great.
You just do you.
FOLT’s angular skull cut-outs have populated the city in recent months, new incarnations popping up in unexpected locations.
The skulls include collaborations, like this one with Bols installed near the Christchurch Art Gallery.
FOLT’s slaps are proliferated even more widely, and here in Cathedrl Junction, the subtlety of placement shows FOLT’s slap game operating at boss level.
While not quite as subtle, this LOOK sticker pretty much speaks for the streets…
This DETOR slap in New Brighton also plays off our reading of signs.
This snake, (I suspect by Zig) has a free flowing feel, yet an undeniable certainty and confidence, while the line of Woe tags is a nice accompaniment.
SAER and SCUM left their mark in New Brighton during the lockdown, a reminder of the streets’ potential as a playground, and further evidence of SAER killing it everywhere.
PESTO and DEMP with the colourful/monotone contrast in the central city
I’ve enjoyed these SKEEZEY SKEEZER hands around the central city, a bit chaotic and yet so refined.
A Philly Wicked?
Tags are beautiful. EISOE, [unknown], WAYSER in the central city…
… and GASP RFC.
Lyttelton is always a go-to destination for slaps…
Both new and old.
A few small Dotmasters stickers have appeared around Christchurch as well, echoing the larger stencil in Lyttelton, and flying the Anarchy flag.
This Meadow Death brandalism sticker reminds of one of the most effective potential of post-graffiti street art – attacking the heart of branding culture…
…Much like the potential of altering our surrounding environment through subversion and our almost inbuilt understanding of semiotics.
If you have some treasures to share, email them to hello@watchthisspace or message us via our social media (@watchthisspacechch) and we can include them in future Street Treats volumes…
And if your work is featured but not credited the way it should be, get in touch and let us know!
