Delving into the murals of the Surface street art festival

But the good news is we can now enjoy the stunning murals at our leisure, with walls around the city beautifully transformed by true works of art.

Street art appears to have come a long way from furtive spray-painting on a backstreet wall to a festival that celebrates and encourages art being placed on buildings and fixtures across the city. (Although there is still debate about what is street art and what is graffiti.)

As a result of the Surface festival, there are now more than 30 new works in public spaces across the city centre, shifting Canberra further from staid to edgy and enlivened.

Canberra artist Yanni Pounartzis - the man behind the Big Swoop sculpture in Garema Place - was also asked to complete a work to launch the Surface festival. He painted a piece on the road near Scotts Crossing outside the Canberra Centre, mimicking the stripes of the pedestrian crossing, but creating his in stunning colours.

"I liked the simplicity of it. It was a simple extension of the crossing and it's more temporary because it's on the road," he said.

"It was an honour for me to make that piece to launch the whole festival."

Pounartzis says the Surface festival has been fantastic for Canberra.

"It's exactly what Canberra needed," he said.

"I wasn't really aware of the scope of the work. When I started to see everything pop up, I was amazed. It's so good that the arts, especially public art, is being appreciated by people."

The festival was billed as a chance to celebrate "the raw energy and rich diversity" of the street art scene.

The festival also saw the launch of the book Their Own Words: 40 Years of Canberra Graffiti, by local artists Jacqui Malins and Caren Florance.

Malins says the artwork produced by the Surface festival may not fit in the same category as that produced on the drains of Woden, which are still defined in the ACT as legal graffiti walls.

"The exact distinction between graffiti and street art is still a contested and negotiated thing," she said.

Graffiti was more often produced "for other people in the scene, the subculture, [it] was much more of an 'in crowd' creation".

Street art was more generally about the beautification of a space.

"Some people in that scene are definitely dismissive of street art because they see it as more part of the establishment and gentrification rather than of rebellion," Malins said.

Yet she supports initiatives such as the Surface festival for its ability to not only beautify a space but to give "work and opportunities to artists and put their art in the public domain".

(The fact that local artist Bohie Palecek had to censor her work in the Surface festival, about "toxic masculinity", following a complaint seemed to confirm the event was not about pushing the envelope in terms of making any statements. Although, in the wake of the whole Will Smith Oscars saga, it seems Bohie might have had a point.)

The festival curator was acclaimed graff artist PHIBS aka Tim De Haan, now based in Wollongong, but originally from Narooma.

He says the festival was about celebrating public art, not least as people got out and about again post-COVID.

"Obviously during the pandemic, the arts were affected terribly, whether it was music or an exhibition or a festival. So to create a giant public art festival was great," he said.

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It was also about promoting Canberra and providing another string to its tourism bow.

"People will come from out of town to check out these works. It will help the economy. When they come to see the mural, they're also likely to want to come and have a coffee and have a meal and experience the environment," he said.

PHIBS said the sheer size of many of the artworks produced for Surface would "blow people's mind", with the public art movement heading more towards large-scale works.

"Public art is art for art's sake. It's bright, it's colourful, it's not trying to sell you something, it's creating a bit of culture," he said.

"There were so many works created that everybody's going to have their own favourite to really link to."

As well as producing pieces throughout Braddon, Garema Place, and laneways around the city, the artists also did a side project with the National Capital Authority to paint murals in the Parkes Way and Commonwealth Avenue pedestrian underpasses.

"We wanted to help local, established as well as emerging, artists to showcase their work and show what they can do," PHIBS said.

"Because I know a lot of artists leave and go to Sydney or Melbourne or somewhere to find opportunities. And what we wanted to do was create at environment here so that people didn't have to leave.

"And by educating people about the importance of public art, it helps them to think outside the box and if there's a new development going up, they might go, 'Wow, there's a big, blank wall there. Let's put a mural on it'."

One young emerging Canberra artist who applied to be part of the Surface festival was RAWS, aka Lawrence Tan, whose work is among those at 50 Mort Street in Braddon.

The 30-year-old saw acceptance into the festival as a big step in his art career, which is currently supplemented by teaching and bricklaying.

"The other artwork in the festival is really high-quality, international standard," he said.

To be included in that number meant a lot to him.

"I feel really excited," RAWS said.