Project Three: Vexta is my artist

Narrative at this point:
A play of tight laneways and polished promenades for Vexta to personally connect with people through stencil art, while anonymously developing her art openly with other talented artists.


The art is stencil graffiti that is mostly human portraiture that varies in size from whole walls to A4 sizes. It also includes Vexta’s exploration of photography

Major design ideas
- Contrast: Street art and her work being presented in public galleries. Vexta’s ability to hide her real name while still working publically
- Sensitive response to urban context of Newtown
- Billboard of Feminism – a unique voice.
- Art work as touchable and tangible. Not delicate compared to the imposed separation felt in a gallery. Play with connection.
- Social and communal connection – workshop – a chance to be open yet not revealing all (identity)


Vexta's motivation for stencil art is both artistic and socio-political. She has been documented as saying:

"I don't want to live in a city that's really bland and covered in grey and brown and advertising. I never said it was OK to put a billboard on the top of Brunswick Street, so who's to say that I can't put up a small A4 size image in a back laneway?" [1].

Her main aim in her work is to connect with the public on an emotional level:
"I want to find and capture what it is that makes us human, the soul of the individual that is at once personal but at the same time deeply universal." [3].

Vexta is a prominent Melbourne street artist [1]. She is especially notable because she is a female operating in a male-dominated arena [2]. Her work is mostly human portraiture. Vexta requests that name not be published.

Vexta is an artist from Australia. Brought up in Sydney but now living in Melbourne.
She has been creating street art since 2003 and is most famously known for her stencils and paste ups which draw from cultural visual debris, her self taught aesthetic and an ongoing exploration of photography. Her images are influenced by a personal symbolism and a greater urban mythology which connect the dots between street rallies and galleries, between acute social commentary and aching beauty.
Her work has been shown in exhibitions across Australia and she recently returned from Europe where she painted murals in Paris and Berlin as well as taking part in The Cans Festival in London. She likes to make things with paintbrushes, spraycans, acrylics and pens and can be found, biking through the city late at night listening to beautiful songs about the end of the world.

“Street art moves to a posh new hang out” Richard Jinman, the Age Newspaper, April 9th 2007.
“The city is here for you to use” Allister Hayman, Pavement Magazine, Summer Ed 2006/07


Dealer: An Australian female patron who is married to a wealthy Japanese banker. She owns a considerable contemporary private collection and was enthralled by a recent exhibition of Vexta’s work in Berlin. She sees herself as truly Australian and sees this gallery as an opportunity to allow home-grown talent to blossom. She currently lives in Berlin as such she comes out only when she can so much of the decisions and meetings are convened online. While she is here she also spends a lot of her time with her family in Sydney’s northern beaches.
She has a small, modern apartment in the gallery and enjoys the liveliness of King Street. Privacy is a key concern, with separate bathroom facilities. Kitchen is highly communal and the living space can be converted to private quarters quite easily.
The stockroom is open, part of the space of the workroom – inspired by the lanes of Newtown. The ability to see the makings of a working gallery – appreciate the humanity of expression.