I spent yesterday walking around Newtown taking photos of some great street art and checking out some shops down the southern end of King Street that I hadn’t seen or been in before. I discovered 567 King, which is a store that combines the sale of street fashion, skateboards, art and Ironlak spray paint. I picked up a couple of brochures while I was in there, one advertising ‘Secret Wars Australia’. I had never heard of this before. The brochure was advertising Secret Wars, a battle of two street artists, Houl vs Max Berry, for a spot in the first ever Secret Wars Grand Final in Australia. I had to go!
So on Thursday night braving the freezing cold weather, I rugged up and headed to Name This Bar on Oxford Street.
Great music, great location, great crowd. A real mixed bag of people rocked up to the bar to watch Semi Final #2 between Houl and Max Berry. I thought I was going to stand out like a sore thumb but that was not the case. Not knowing what to expect we decided to get there early and lucky we did because it didn’t take long for the bar to fill up.
As I walked into the bar I was immediately struck by the big painted white wall divided in two with two ladders resting against the wall in anticipation of the activity of the night. The white wall would be the canvas for tonight.
The Rules
90 minutes
Black marker or black paint only
2 street artists
1 winner
The countdown to the battle began… armed with pens and a ladder the artists started their visual battle on the wall. What I loved the most was watching these two artists work was not only the different styles of the two artist but the completely different approaches to creating their designs.
Houl focussed his attention on a small area at first, adding detail through pen strokes as he went, slowly revealing the design he had in his mind – it was like telling us a story and gradually revealing the plot to the eager onlookers.
Max Berry mapped out the overall design at a surprisingly fast pace and then went back to add in detail, character and pattern. Both designs were fantastic, had a great sense of humour and were totally different.
I absolutely loved the whole experience. Seeing the actual artworks being created was awesome. I have total respect for the talent of these street artists! It is tragic to think the artworks that were created tonight would only be temporary and would once again be replaced by a white wall for the final of the Street Wars.
Houl was the winner on the night. Can’t wait for the final!
You can check out the Secret Wars Australia Battle 3 - Bridge Stehli v Houl or Secret Wars Australia Battle 4 – Max Berry v Amuse which were the two rounds that got these artists into the semi final facing off against each other.
