Graffiti Art Melbourne: Who am I?

Cowboy Cool

There's a guy I often spot, especially in Brunswick Street, dressed in a long studded leather coat, high-heeled cowboy boots, black leather pants and a stetson. With his goatee, sideburns and shades, he always manages to convey an air of absolute assurance about his urban cowboy persona. The picture above reminds me of him.

'Carn the 'Pies!'

The team we love to hate - because they are so good!
I found this Collingwood fan on a wall in Collingwood itself, so obviously not all locals support the Magpies. Unless of course the artist is celebrating the team's fans' 'bad boy' image. There he stands with his battered face, a ciggie hanging out of a dribbling mouth with its missing teeth, a pot of beer behind him and meat pie in hand. That lewd wink says it all: 'You mightn't like us, but who gives a stuff!'  Barry Humphries' obscene offensive buffoon, Sir Les Patterson, packs a similar sort of wallop. And we mightn't like to admit it, but there's something quintessentially Australian about both of them.

Hey Dude!

I absolutely love the high-spirits of some of the characters you meet, and the unexpected places you meet them. This party-ing bear was in a dead-end lane-way, and though he was celebrating alone, he was obviously having a ball.

Reclusive Rooster

Not so this reclusive rooster. You'll need to look hard to find him. He's hidden behind a shed at our local community garden, whose produce he's obviously been enjoying. But from his sombre expression I suspect he's had it with being alone. He wants to get out and have some fun. And I know just who to hook him up with:

Party girl

Totally out there, she's an expert at having a good time. I'm sure she would rise to the challenge of helping Reclusive Rooster let it rip.

Where are my feet?

The twins above could do with some of Party Girl's effervesense. But on the other hand, they do have something to look concerned about - after all, what's happened to the rest of their bodies? They remind me of the unfinished slave sculptures of Michelangelo, which have intrigued generations of art lovers. The perennial question is: What would they have looked like had they been completed?
But I love them just as they are, because they remind me that human beings never are 'finished'. There are always new things to discover about ourselves, and we're always changing. Although I'd have to agree that there's changing. And then there's changing...
When I was a teenager there was a film that terrified me. I think it was part of 'The Planet of the Apes' series. As the film progressed the heroes, who were humans, inexorably started changing, bit by bit and feature by feature, into apes. I remember I had nightmares about that film for ages afterwards. This image by Kaff-eine, where the boy seems to be growing pig ears, instantly brought the film to mind. I always ensure that I pass by this utility box on its far side.

Planet of the Pigs?

I don't know what I'll post about next. But Melbourne's street art is proving hard to resist.