Displacement | St. Kilda

Displacement | Image captured by P1xels

Do you ever feel like you’re coming apart at the seams? Recently finished painting this mural on the corner of Jackson and Fitzroy St. in St. Kilda, opposite the Gatwick, a privately run rooming house that is the last bastion of hope for many of Melbourne’s homeless.

The forgotten folk of Melbourne end up here. They use this corner to beg for change and bum cigarettes. A few colourful characters kept me company while I painted this mural. All with stories to tell. This painting deals with depression. Something that has plagued my mind for as long as I can remember. In a popular culture of sport, alcohol abuse and violence people don’t often speak about depression despite the fact that we probably all know someone who has taken their own life or thrown it away with drugs or risk taking behaviour. It’s also about displacement: graffiti can be a way of claiming ownership feeling a sense of belonging in a city that turns its back on those that don’t have capital.

I found it incredibly hard to find help when I needed it and I come from a supportive middle class family so I don’t know how the hell people with nothing get help. I do know that housing them all in one place without any assistance toward rehabilitation is just normalising their cycle of self destructive behaviour. The City Of Melbourne has even been “moving Homeless people along” as they looked unsightly during the Australian Open. What happened to compassion? What happened to “Boundless planes to share?” I guess I painted this mural to try and show that beauty still exists in the world even when you can’t see it. Sometimes you just need to turn yourself around.

Thanks to Georgia Rouette at The City of Port Phillip for supporting artists and fighting against the powers that be that are afraid of anything that might rock the boat. Art should generate discourse Have a nice day the sun is shining.

“What happened to compassion? I painted this mural to try and show that beauty still exists in the world even when you can’t see it. Sometimes you just need to turn yourself around.”