Wellington Street Art
For the last few months I’ve been making an effort to pay more attention to the city I live in. Studying more closely what I see every day, looking beyond the surface to the layers underneath and behind.
This, along with a slightly lifted profile in recent times (media / social media), has highlighted for me the presence of street art.
Just about every city has it; some people like it, some tolerate it, and some I’m sure would rather just have plain exteriors around the place.
I think it’s a really important sub-culture that gives a place character as well as a creative outlet for an incredibly talented part of the population. It’s a bit ironic in a way: covert artists producing often big and public artworks.
Wellington’s few earthquakes of late (more alarming than destructive) finally propelled me to prioritise spending a day in the city, walking around and seeing what I could find.
And when you’re deliberately looking for street art, it’s surprising how much do find.
When preparing this post I felt I should provide additional information, so with the help of Google maps to retrace my steps, and other research, I have noted the locations and where possible, the artists. This was especially interesting as you start to pick up on the respective styles.
I only scratched the surface that day and plan to do further exploration.
Pidgeon art?
This is a funny sort of theme that has popped up in Wellington over the last few months. I snapped a couple that I saw during my walkabout and discovered this Facebook page where people can upload pigeon posters they find!
tall tales 
I’m a huge fan of street art. I love everything that it embraces. What a great idea to go round your city and take photographs of it. I’m definitely going to check out the pigeon facebook page, it looks fun and quirky. A fun post Hayley, thank you 😀
Its been quite the revelation and adds another dimension (and ’00s more photos no doubt) to our upcoming US trip too. Thanks for your comment Lottie!
Isn’t it fun to take some time and see your part of the world through “tourist” eyes? Wonderful images, Hayley!
Thanks very much Cindi – thought I should start to document it all lest we do disappear into a pile of rubble! It’s such a simple pleasure to walk around with a camera, your only job being to observe and photograph. I love it.
There are some very gifted street artists about so what do you do if you want to showcase your work and galleries aren’t interested
If you’re lucky you get commissioned by businesses or the council. Otherwise you chance your blank canvases where you can. A couple of old fort installations near where we live are tucked away out of sight on hilltops and are covered in many layers of art and graffiti.
Great Captures! Were some of these commissioned works then? We have a quite a few murals that were commissioned here. I’ve wanted to document some of them myself as some are truly stunning.
Hello Ange! Yes some are (the Museum Hotel and Maori murals are examples) and I see on their website that the city council have commissioned a few as part of their anti-graffiti strategy. Hadn’t really thought about that but it makes sense.
❤ Wellington 🙂
Great photos – I recognise quite a few of those from my recent wanderings around Te Aro.
Ah yes, so I see. Some good leads in there for my next street art walkabout, and I love the historical flavour of your posts.
Thanks! I enjoy your blog too. Wellington is such a great place to explore.
Great link Hayley, and thanks for the photos! Some are comissioned by private business’s and most of them are not, and none of them are comissioned by the council. Most of the time we self fund these and try to keep motivated, so it’s great to hear such positive feedback.
Thanks
Sean aka Ghøstie
http://www.ghstie.com
Hi Sean 🙂 Thanks for the clarification. Street art seems to have a very gradually increasing profile and I would hope that more paid works start appearing in the pipeline as a result. Appreciate the comment.