Nothing will brighten your day more than the colorful, rich and diverse street art culture of Newcastle. This art work is the lovely suture in the fabric of social and community life and best of all, it is so easily accessible to everyone by foot or by pushie.
I do love the street art around this wonderful city and I like to think of it as being more like an open air community gallery for everyone to enjoy. I also believe too, some of this sort of imagery is as important as the most expensive art which hangs in the National Gallery.
To me, street art is a visual feast which can provoke and entertain. It can be imaginative and wildly creative and it can inspire and very often, it has an immensely powerful message. It is the artists’ unheard voice bought to life on an often cold concrete canvas which demands of the world to look and to think. Street art really has become a global culture and you can find it on surfaces all over the world.
Since I started hunting out and photographing these lovely works of art, I have discovered there is a ‘Street Art Walking Tour’ right here in Newcastle. This is a guided tour and from their site, SAW (Street Art Walking), you can download your very own street art walking map.
I am yet to download the map as I am happy to wander the streets alone and discover these pieces of art for myself, but I will recommend it to those who prefer a guided tour. On walks such as these, you will gain information on the artist who created the piece, the meaning behind the artwork and how the piece came to be….which I think is pretty wonderful. This really is a great way to appreciate fine art. When we educate ourselves we then better understand, protect and care for something for we all safeguard the things we love most.
Some of these works are enormous and they are enormously beautiful and the one I have posted below is one of my favorites. It also happens to be less than a one minute walk from my home and I see it almost daily.
Some of this amazing art is found in the most obscure and neglected of areas which is sometimes inhabited by the homeless and those ‘doing it a little tough’ but I believe that everyone, no matter who they are, deserve to see something very beautiful ….. xx
oceangirl - these are my stories 
Wow, wow, wow. Just amazing!! Thank you for sharing this xx
Thank you Allie for such a lovely comment x
BEAUTIFUL 🙂
Thank you so much Jac x
Dear Ocean Girl. My children and I found a beautiful whale mural in the mall and I Googled it and your site came up. Your blog was lovely so we spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for some of the art work you photographed. It was like a treasure hunt and so much fun. Next weekend we will look for the ‘Newcastle’ photos. Thank you and we hope you have a lovely weekend xx
Dear Charlie and Suri’s Mum.
Thank you for your lovely message……it made my day. I am so glad my blog post made for a family treasure hunt, what a wonderful idea. There is such beautiful art work around and I hope you discovered some that I have not seen as yet. Have a beautiful week x
Wow, so lovely and you are so right in saying that everyone and it doesn’t matter who they are deserves to see beautiful things 💟
Such a lovely comment. Thank you Libbey x
As an ex-graffiti artist from Newcastle it’s brilliant to see how the scene has exploded since I departed overseas. I miss Newcastle and often reminisce about the days we used to walk over the high level bridge in the small hours with a couple of cans of paint and throw up a couple of dubs. Thanks for posting these photos. Newcastle is awesome and the street art has way surpassed what I imagined it would have.
Hello Ben and thank you so much for your great comment.
How wonderful that you are an ex-graffiti artist from Newcastle. There really is so much of this amazing work around and it certainly deserves recognition for the art that it is and the art that it inspires. The small selection I posted is only the tip of the iceberg.
Very sadly in recent months we ‘lost’ the amazing mural art work of Guido Van Helten. It was the beautiful portrait piece of a young boy located on the corner of the Pacific Highway/Hunter St and Stewart Ave. It was painted over during a ‘renovation’ where the building was painted charcoal grey by the owners. And we will perhaps lose another piece which is again one of my favorites, the beautiful face of the aboriginal boy (one of the last photos on the blog) as the area the art work is located is going to be ‘re-developed’.
It was my pleasure to photograph these works and post it and I am so glad you enjoyed seeing them. Take care and have a great week x