Don't call Matthew Peet - who works under the name Mistery - a graffiti artist. The 46-year-old Sydneysider said he preferred the term graffiti writer for the work he had been doing throughout the past 33 years in Australia and internationally - which in addition to his own work included education and promoting legal graffiti sites in cities around the world.
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The ACT government went along with this project. Peet, together with Yuin artist Brett David Carpenter and street artist James Smalls, spent Thursday and Friday with 17 Indigenous Charles Kingsford Smith students aged between 12 and 16 planning and painting a mural on the walls of a toilet block in Kippax.
They used spray paint over an acrylic base with colours predominantly from the Aboriginal flag - red, yellow and black - and made use of Indigenous motifs and designs.
"We spent one day of design and drawing, one day of painting," Peet said. The work will be completed on Monday in time for the launch at 1pm.
Tuggeranong Arts Centre chief executive officer Rauny Worm said the mural project was the part of the centre's Messengers program. It was the final product of a one-year development program Messengers delivered to Indigenous students at Kingsford Smith High School in 2016 that combined contemporary and traditional art practices.
Worm said: "It's an art program for young people disengaged from school for various reasons. They participated in different art sessions - visual art, performing art, music."
Carpenter, 26, an artist who studied at CIT, said while working with the students could be challenging at times - "They're very excitable, they're kids" - the project was a rewarding one.
"It's very good to see them enthusiastic about what they want to do," he said.
Worm said Smalls was unable to come on Friday as he was running another class in the program at Wanniassa High School, this one painting on boards rather than walls, though the principle was the same: unlocking young people's creativity and getting their work out there to be seen.
Peet will also be conducting street art demonstrations and running a graffiti writing workshop at the free Laneway Block Party in the Gazebo area on Anketell Street in Tuggeranong near the Hyperdome. It will include live music, a sausage sizzle, fruit and vegetable sculpture making and a DJ, as part of the Spaces & Places program.
For more information see tuggeranongarts.com/spaces-and-places.
