Melbourne's Stencil Art Evolution: It all started with Dog Man!

I first saw this stencil in 1988 on St Kilda's The Esplanade, Melbourne. The photograph here was taken in late 1989, where some weeks before, I had installed one of my own "stick ups" - four hand coloured photocopy drawings on paper below first stencil. These stencils of "Dog Man" are some of the most original I've seen in spite of their simplicity and crude technical work.

Bozo One? Richmond, Melbourne 1988. Clearly the work of some graphics nutter.

One of my favourite statements in politicised graffiti art in Melbourne from the early 1990s: STOP MURAL EXPERIMENTS! Placed in respect for the "other artist" and communicating a point quite clear. Another piece of activist graffiti from the time was in Fitzroy's Brunswick Street cafe strip which communicated in a rough scrawl "ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN COFFEE CHATS".

A little bit of coffee cup action here. One of my own attempts at stenciling began in late 1989 with this crude coffee cup graphic at locations where I desired the convenient for a cafe. The coffee cups appeared in about half a dozen locations in inner city Collingwood and Fitzroy. One was still visible in 2010 and another unintentionally appears (fragment in part page 100 / right of Raygun Rabbit) in the 2005 landmark book by Jake Smallman and Carl Nyman - Stencil Graffiti Capital Melbourne.

I can only amuse that this was a local band. It appeared on Fitzroy's Beswick Building in 1989, photographed here in 2005. It disappeared only a few years ago

Anti First Gulf War stencil on corners of Brunswick Street and St Georges Rd Fitzroy North c1990.

Hosier Lane in Melbourne is world renowned for its graffiti art. In 2005 I shot this corner of Rutledge Lane. Note Little Johnny Howard was our Prime Minister at the time for those who's memory is short and think that Scomo has been our worst PM!