April 2026

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

‘Wallisms’ are important and they more often than not reflect what is happening in society. The modern Australian culture is a new one. It has benefited from the diverse range of nationalities that have come to this wide, brown land and called it home.

Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is an idea that is more commonly used in chaos theory. A small change can make much bigger changes happen; one small incident can have a big impact on the future. The idea started from weather prediction. … This term can be used in areas other than weather.

This term was developed by Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) who was an American mathematician and meteorologist. He established the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology.

This Wallism is opposite from Green Beacon Brewing Co in Helen Street, Teneriffe, Brisbane. this area is full of wonderful, micro boutique breweries. Each have their own personalities and clientel.

Here is a list of ‘must visit’ breweries:

Green Beacon Brewing Co, Helen St Teneriffe

Stone and Wood Brewery, Bridge St, Fortitude Valley

Felons Brewing Co., Boundary St, Brisbane

Range Brewing, Byres St, Newstead

Soapbox Beer, Gipps St, Fortitude Valley

Our smiles are our armour

Smiling makes us attractive.
Smiling relieves stress.
Smiling elevates our moods.
Smiling is contagious.
Smiling boosts your immune system.
Smiling lowers your blood pressure.
Smiling makes us feel good.
Smiling makes you look younger.
Smiling makes you seem successful.
Smiling helps you stay positive.

Patterns.

Patterns: A regular and intelligent form or sequence discernible in the way in which something happens or is done. This image, captured by Felix Oppen, is a great example of a ‘Wallism’. Urban art generously created and installed by an anonymous artist, brings pattern, colour and provocative imagery to our dull and often artless urban landscape.

A concrete pillow.

Concrete Pillow. 

It is hard, cold and unforgiving all morning, day and night.

Many think I chose this life for me, They say it’s not their fight.

Sometimes the hunger really sucks, but I do have my pride.

I wont beg, so if I must in the garbage I will dive.

My one pair of stockings are so filthy and so stiff I try to wash

in the public fountain since I wont likely get new ones as a gift.

It is hard, cold and unforgiving all morning, day and night.

Many think I chose this life for me, They say it’s not their fight.

Sometimes the hunger really sucks, but I do have my pride.

I wont beg, so if I must in the garbage I will dive.

It is now time to lay down to sleep, I pray the Lord, my soul will keep

And whether or not I die before I wake.

Jacob Folger December 22, 2011.

Athens, Greece

The walls of this splendid city are full of ‘wallisms’. They come in many styles, some are just spontaneous scribbles, some call it graffiti. Some are well executed images, that are considered and crafted and beautiful.

Old school.

Package design is an ever present part of the urban landscape. Strangely, cigarette and tobacco packaging, a key to the overall identity of this commodity, is vilified in many modern cultures. Although people within those cultures still use the product inside. In other cultures, usually more ‘old school’, this visual language is still considered and attractive and acceptable part of the everyday advertising and promotion campaigns.

Tokyo, Japan.

Manga are comics created in Japan or by creators in the Japanese language, conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. They have a long and complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art.

The term manga in Japan is a word used to refer to both comics and cartooning. ‘Manga’ as a term used outside Japan refers to comics originally published in Japan.

The image on the left was found in a Tokyo subway station. It was an illuminated billboard for some advertising campaign and there were about 10 different images in the series. All the images were 19th century Japanese inspired but really evoked a sense of the contemporary Manga for me.

The image on the right was found on a wall at the Lord Gladstone pub in Chipendale, Sydney.

Kenridge and Rome.

The South African artist, William Kentridge’s ‘Triumphs and Laments’ is comprised of a 550 meter long frieze along the urban waterway of the river Tiber in Rome. The figures, which are up to 12 meters high, chart the city’s historic victories and defeats, ranging from Romulus and Remus to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder outside Rome in 1975.

It will, sadly, eventually fade away as the grim returns.

Together at last.

No words can really articulate what this image evokes. First seen in 2017, this visual sentiment is just as relevant 10 years later. A true worry for us all.

Athens, Greece.

Beautiful homes and buildings crumbling due to neglect and hard times are being reinvented and turned into canvases upon which wonderful, playful imagery is placed. A statement of renaissance and defiance driven by the artists of Athens which ensures this eternal city maintains contemporary relevance.

The musing of Athens.

Wallism is a creative activity which knows no boundaries, borders, or limitations. The degree of thought and planning and execution is of a constant source of delight and admiration.

These examples were found in the heart of Athens. A place that is rich in energy and art. Wallism rocks.

Rip, tear, see.

Walking home after work can sometimes be a drag. But sometimes it throws wonderful things in front of me. The pure ‘corner of the eye’ stuff. This example of ‘Wallism’ was found at the intersection of Cleveland and Regent Streets, Redfern.

This serendipitous collage, I fear, wont be there for long, as it is the result of a happy accident of actions and reactions. Just love finding something I was not looking for.

J O Y. One word says it all.

Delight, great pleasure, joyfulness, jubilation, triumph, exultation, rejoicing, happiness, gladness, glee, exhilaration, exuberance, elation, euphoria, bliss, ecstasy, rapture, enjoyment, felicity, joie de vivre, jouissance, literary jocundity, pleasure, source of pleasure, treat, thrill.

And I bet you experience one of the above at least once a day. Be grateful for that and be in that moment.

Write drunk. Edit sober.

Good ideas and insights come to us at unexpected times or in the most unexpected places.

Larger than Life.

Under the freeway overpass, near the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane, huge murals have been lovingly and bravely and passionately created. These works are grand and are of no small effort. They demand your attention both from an aesthetic point of view, as well as from a symbolic place.

They are beautiful.

Just hanging around.

Standing is stupid, crawling’s a curse, skipping is silly, walking is worse.
Hopping is hopeless, jumping’s a chore, sitting is senseless, learning’s a bore.
Running’s ridiculous, jogging’s insane…
Guess I’ll go upstairs and lie down again.

Shel Silverstein
A Light in the Attic

A hero.

This two storey tall portrait of Australian journalist Peter Greste appeared on a wall in Redfern, Sydney, Australia about mid December 2015, and served the purpose of reminding us of the plight of this unjustly imprisoned man.

He had been held in an Egyptian jail for 400days. In mid December, at about 1:00am (AUS EST) Peter walked through the sliding doors of Brisbane International Airport to the loving arms of his family and friends who had done every pro active thing they could to restore his freedom, which had been ripped from his colleagues and himself that 400 days prior.

They never gave up hope.

They never imagine anything other than a positive outcome.

Positive thought can change the world if like minded people can have a single focus on a specific outcome. The notion that we are helpless in adversity is not altogether correct. See the outcome, believe in the outcome, focus on the outcome.

Live life as if the outcome is inevitable.

Whats new pussy cat?

Anthropomorphic images stare out at all who walks by.
The word anthropomorphism is a noun. It means to attribute human characteristics or behaviour to a god, an animal, or an object.

We tend to give inanimate objects personalities. We project human qualities onto our animals.
To anthropomorphize something often works well as a metaphoric vehicle to communicate a thought, an idea, a statement.

The images above are two good examples of this concept. Just love what people do with walls and ‘wallisms’.

The back street art of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

Take a drive, one weekend, around the rapidly changing, gentrified, once exclusively light-industrial area of Wickham in Newcastle Australia. Turning down one small street and up the next is a constant deligh with the discovery of one ‘wallism’ and murals after another.

The walls of the converted factories are groaning with huge murals and images that have been conceived, considered and constructed with great energy and execution.

Who produces these? Why do they make them?
The only answer I have is maybe they create these wonderful additions to our urban landscape for the joy of doing, of bringing loud, witty and beautiful street art to our lives for the sake of doing.

May Lane, St Peters, Sydney.

There is a laneway, well two lane ways, in the inner city west district of Sydney, called May Lane.
It is the venue for an art gallery that has gradually appeared and grown organically.
The laneways are full to the brim with the most beautiful and diverse contemporary street art.
From street knitting to old school type based tagging to beautifully executed paintings such as the heron above.

Its ‘Wallism’ at its finest.

Life is black and white, sometimes.

We are surrounded by colour all the time. As a matter of fact there are approximately 12,000 known named colours, and there must be thousands more that we have not been able to formally name. So when we observe an almost exclusively black and white cameo, it is both striking and restrained.

Chalk talk.

To make one’s mark.

We make our mark through our actions, our words, and our creative efforts.
It may not be obvious but it is there. It exists.

Another slice.

The Sun was shining and Summer is hanging on and the watermelons keep flourishing on the walls of inner city Redfern (Sydney, Australia).
There is a joy in the graphic element that triggers universal memories.

Shiftazine salutes the generous street artist who gives their time and paint to bring us these visual delights.

Dialogue.

Little heros.

A fresh refresh.

About ten days ago, slices of watermelon started appearing all around the Fern (Redfern, Sydney, Australia).
Sometimes they are big and sometimes they are tiny. They all look delicious.

Going, going, almost gone.

I remember when I shot these images, I had a thought that this ‘Wallism’ was doomed. This beautiful piece of visual communication, this wonderful, unique ‘Wallism’ was torn down soon after, for no apparent reason. Then, eventually some god awful badly engineered apartment block was put in its place.

Old is not bad. New is not always good.

The fawn.

A love letter to type.

Glisten.

In a back corner of Surry Hills, Sydney, a building has been turned into a piece of ‘Wallism’ at its finest.
The people responsible for this visual delight are called Bespokewall.

Love is love.

Opposites do attract and life is full of strange bedfellows. This example of a ‘Wallism’ is a portrait of love and connection and was found on Smith Street in the suburb of Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia.
Finding this was a joy.

The stuff of life.

People are pretty much the same wherever you go, regardless of the culture they grow up in. They all feel the same basic emotions, and fear the same basic things. They need and want the same authentic things, like love and respect and encouragement. This truth does not need to be written with three syllable words, they just demand to be articulated.

People want and need to be heard. So listen, sometimes you might hear something new.

Horizontal on vertical.

Good dog.

The ‘ISM’ of the 21st century.

Rothko in the streets.

This was the first ‘Wallism’. It was just around the corner from my house and I walked past it everyday. Then suddenly, I got it. This was art.