The Brunswick Street Gallery has, for some time, been a bastion of visual innovation amongst the sidewalk-bustle of Melbournes creative hub, Fitzroy. With numerous exhibitions revolving around both solo and group works, as well as competitions for emerging and established artists, it is no surprise that their next endeavour is helping to foster the expanding interest in gallery displayed urban art. Having begun her position as Assistant Director at the BSG in October of 2009, and as a member of the board for the Melbourne Stencil Festival, curator Tessa Yee has wasted no time in putting together a showcase of works traversing an undeniably complex, and continually evolving style.

“I’ve always had such a strong interest in this kind of art, so I was really excited when Mark Jamieson (BSG director) wanted to put on an Urban art show at the gallery – and it was only natural that I curate it!” she enthuses. “It meant I was able to draw upon, and expand, my ties with the street and stencil art community, as well as to build new relationships with some awesome illustrators I was lucky to find whilst I was doing research for the show.”

With the upcoming Urban Art 10A exhibition, her personal passion and enthusiasm has enabled her to bring together a wide array of talents for the first themed street art exhibition at the BSG. From traditional “urban artists” (read: graffiti), to illustrators and toy makers, the addition of another gallery confronting the outdated view of artists working within the style as vandals and misfits is a testament to its ever evolving popularity. Within this evolution however, the definitions of “street” and “urban” art are highly mutable, presenting no simple task for a curator.

“The main challenge was trying to find a balance between all the different mediums that can be encompassed under the theme “urban art,” she explains, citing the difficulty in nailing down the style. “As a word, urban it is pretty general, though I personally took it to represent ‘street-styled’ art, and thus started from there – looking at graffiti and stencil artists, as well as graphic design and illustrators who were influenced by street art. In the end, I thought, instead of trying to make the exhibition a balanced and formal show as is usually found in commercial spaces, I could have it echo the spirit of what is seen on the street, and just ask the invited artists to do as they wish! So I ended up being pretty open to what the artists wanted to show, how much work was on the walls, their mediums etc. I thought, the less white walls, the better!”

What: Urban 10A
When: Opening 12th March @ 6pm until 25th March
Where: Brunswick Street Gallery, 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

Tessa was also kind enough to offer Invurt a number of insights into the curation process of Urban 10a, a detailed look at the artists and work that will be found in the show, and a roadmap for what’s coming up at the BSG.

What is the idea behind Urban Art 10A, and what do you believe it will bring to the table in terms of exposure for urban artists?

The basis of the show was to just bring together some of the best representatives of ‘urban art’ working in a variety of mediums, and that are influenced by street art culture. I hope the exhibition will be full of colour and life, and not a typical commercial gallery exhibition. Of course, bringing works into a gallery space and hanging canvases on the walls is very different from the spontaneous murals and graffiti you find on the street. But I believe the artists’ works in this show have the same life and energy because of the influence that street art has on their works. It is also nice to celebrate this kind of art in a commercial setting, because it brings a level of professionalism to the art which is not always appreciated when artists do works on the street. So in terms of exposure, I hope that the show will introduce these kinds of works to a diverse audience, including typical commercial art-gallery goers, not just those interested in street art. I hope to emphasise the way street art and street art-styles have become professionalised in the last decade, and its particular importance to defining contemporary art in Melbourne.

When you were looking at artists for the show, what criteria did you apply in their selection?

When it came to selecting artists, I approached those whose work I already knew quite well (from past shows in Melbourne), or whom I had seen/heard of before and was keen to see more of. Obviously the artists had to be working in ‘urban’ styles – but as I said before, this is such a general term, it can encompass so much! About half the artists in the show are street artists – that is, they work consistently on the street doing large murals or decorating lane-ways. Some of these are stencil artists who I met during last years festival and am frequently in contact with about events and opportunities they might like to be involved with. The illustrators, I found when doing a bit of research online – looking at past exhibitions with this kind of medium, looking at artists websites and blogs, and asking around. Its a small community, so knowing a couple of good, say stencil artists, can usually lead you to a whole bunch.

Can you give me a general run down on some of the artists involved, and what you believe they contribute to the overall theme of the exhibition?

The interstate representative artists include ELK from Canberra, Apeseven from Sydney and Gary Seaman from Adelaide. Our own local Melbourne collective of artists will include: stencil artists Logan Moody, Boo, Jak Rapmund, James Panic and Kirpy; illustration dudes, Nate Gamble, Timothy Molloy, and Ben Ashton-Bell; and toy makers Rob Thompson, Amy Calton and Antonia Green.

Artists such as ELK and Apeseven have been around the stencil/street art scene for a while now and are really active
artists in this medium. ELK produces these amazing multilayer stencils that really surpass in technique, your typical
stencil art on the street. His works are examples of the way stencil art has evolved in technique from one-two layer stencils on the street, to intricate multilayer images that can be considered fine-art. Emerging artists Logan Moody and Kirpy also work in with intricate multi layer stencils, usually in monochromatic tones to create darker, heavier stencil images, with subtle differences in the layers.

BOO is our only female contributor (besides the toy artists). She was the winner of the Melbourne Stencil Festival emerging artists award last year and produces beautiful stencil images on wood, with detailed graphite drawn backgrounds. Her subjects play on feminist ideals using vintage poster-pin-ups of women as her primary influence for her stencils.

The illustrators, Nate, Timothy and Ben, all produce technically intricate fantasy-based images. The weird and wacky seem to define some of the subjects seen in these guys works. Tim will
also be showing some of his custom comic strips, which again, adds another medium to the show which fits
under the all umbrella of ‘urban art’. A nice juxtaposition with this, is James Panic’s works, which are paintings influenced by comic-style illustrations. James makes custom t-shirts for a living, but his art is really unique, and use simple, two-tone images on wood of superheroes and villains which have a really cool retro quality.

Jak Rapmund does zombie stencils on wood, integrating several one-two layer stencils, creating a kind of sketch-board look with images, words, and colours all over the canvas. Again, his style has comic-book references, with the characters often yelling out through a stencilled speech bubble on the work. Jak will also be showing some skate-decks which are really appropriate for a street-style exhibition considering how many street artists work on this medium, and are skaters themselves!

Gary Seaman’s works on wood take influences from both street art and oriental cultures. He creates intriguing nonsensical characters with what he calls “hidden details”. Also a toy maker, his characters have a child-like quality with a twist.

Besides the regular wall-hung pieces, there are also toys being featured within the exhibition, how do you believe that these fit in?

The toy makers are three artists from the Australian Guild of Toymakers. I thought their work would be an interesting three-dimensional edition to the exhibition, and I liked the inclusion of different mediums. The toys these particular artists create are all funny little characters which you often see in street-style paintings (such as seen in Gary Seaman’s works). A lot of graffiti based street art is usually either text-based or character-based, so the toys these artists create seem to be the three dimensional versions of these characters – bringing them to life in a way!

When I think of ‘Urban Art’ I think of street culture which includes- custom designed t-shirts, skate-boards, hip-hop, comics, vinyl and plush toys – as well as the art. I think custom toys fit into the design and illustration side of street art culture. Stencil art itself is similar to graphic design and printmaking because images can be re-used in different contexts. So the commercial, design side of urban culture is very much expressed in both the art shown in this exhibition and the ‘art products’ (such as the toys, skate decks and prints for sale).

I also think its cool the way young people these days choose to both make their own, and buy custom art-products instead of labelled brands. Custom toys, custom skate decks, custom t-shirts are all creating a bridge between commercial urban culture and art as hand-made, hand-designed works.

Does this exhibition follow an existing running theme, or do you believe it will constitute a running theme for future shows?

This exhibition will be the first of its kind at the gallery – but we hope to make ‘urban art’ a twice-yearly themed show, alongside our other annual themed shows (drawing, photography, painting etc). We already have the next one planned in October as part of the next Melbourne Stencil Festival. And we hope that these exhibitions will help bring more of this kind of art into the gallery. (As I said, I have a bit of a passion for street art and illustration, so am keen to see as much as possible here at BSG!)

Even though the exhibition has not yet been and gone, what comes next?

Well for me, I’m on the board for MSF again and we have already started talking to artists and brainstorming ideas to make this years festival bigger and better. I am also curating an all female illustration group show in May at BSG. This will be a celebration of feminine art – featuring a bunch of artists that explore ideas of femininity – whether that be beautiful, fairy-tale like images, or more twisted, darker images of femininity. I’m in the process of collecting artists for this show too – and it should be a great one featuring ladies from all over the country,

For BSG – we are leading up to our next big prize show, which is the Works on Paper (drawing and printmaking) $10,000 prize at the beginning of May. We are already collecting entrants for this competition, and then we will select 50 finalists to show at the gallery and be judged for the prizes! I love these shows as we get to see hundreds of entries, and usually the best artists have to offer …

Visit The Brunswick Street Gallery website for more information.