Street (and other) art

Q: What do you notice when you look at this view (well, any view, really) of the city from our 18th floor hotel room? Apart from the Paspaley yacht, I mean.

A: Buildings are painted bright colours and there's a LOT of street art.

Street art in Darwin is a thing, and a good thing too. Parking lots are often painted with murals. I took these photos on the weekend, when there were fewer cars blocking the view. These four murals are all on the same block. Forget the intricate, layered, angsty, grunge-graffiti art of Melbourne's laneways. Darwin does street art big, bold and often cheerful.

Much of Darwin's street art is also colourful. This orange beauty is on the wall of the Darwin ABC building. The brahminy kite, the crocodile and the magpie goose are all totems of the artist's clan, part of the Larrakia people. I'll include a link to the artist's story at the end of this post, in case you're interested.

It's to be expected that the art would reference Darwin's Aboriginal heart, but there are some more esoteric pieces too. Anyone want to interpret the yellow background woman with the snake and the Doberman?

Austin Lane is the focal point of the annual street art festival. Austin Lane is also the location of Charlie's Rooftop Bar, which earlier this year featured as one of the 100 best bars in the world in some international survey. The entrance to Charlie's is through an industrial roller door, down this trendy decorated lane. Ken scored the rooftop bar 1/10. He was appalled by a chipped glass on our first visit. However, we commend Charlie's inside bar to you for the joint-second-best (and most expensive) martinis in town.

So I've now included the obligatory crocodile, but what about other animals? One of my favourite murals is this cicada. It's on the side of the Darwin Entertainment Centre. And there's the cockatoo, next to the horseman in the map of the NT.

Look, I could go on. There really is a lot of street art in Darwin. But while we're on the subject of art, here's something more personal, much smaller and far more amateur. A couple of lovely colleagues and I went one evening to a social painting event. Seriously, that's what it's called: social painting. It's held in a private room in a bar. Everyone does the same painting; everyone uses acrylics, which are easy to use and easy to wash off self. The teacher guides the group through the different stages of creating the artwork. The subject we were all painting was called 'Pandanus sunset'. Pandanus trees are common in the Territory — they're also called screwpines, and they're sort of shaggy-looking, vaguely palm-like trees. I enjoyed the evening (and a glass of wine or two) enormously, but suffice to say that my painting will remain in Darwin landfill when I go home.