Stop 5 Alexandra parade/ George St
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In this last stop, you will see an exterior of the pool wall is covered beautifully by artworks of Kaffeine. These artworks are contributed to Kaffeine first project, which called HEARTCORE book. This book offers audiences an insight into the lives of young people who suffer great distress and significant harm. Their short and unique stories would be interpreted and painted by Kaffeine as a series of street art works on wall across Melbourne. As you could see on the wall, whether they are young people or young animals, they are all carrying deep suffer and distress in life. The space between each pieces also provoke the feeling of loneliness and isolation from the society, they just can’t help themselves to get rid of the struggle in life. Therefore, by creating these artworks, Kaffeine has successfully spread these young people’s stories to wider audiences, make their stories heard and regain their belief in the society that they are living in. By understanding the meaning and stories behind Kaffeine’s artworks, you could gain more understanding on the insignificance of gender in street art, and how it should not shape the way people think about women street artists and their artworks. In fact, by the way that Kaffeine never associates her works with glamorous female portrait, and convey a strong sense of morbidity and melancholia, she often mistaken as a male artist while other female street artists often criticized and got their work exaggerated by others in term of feminism critique in street art.
All in all, female or male street artists have common characteristics in creating artworks. They focus on the internal script that could convey a meaningful message or interrupt the surroundings creatively to enhance the value of street art to the society. Some female street artists might have the strong feminine characteristics in their portrayal work, but it’s never been the message of empowerment. Instead, they are trying to empower the confidence of passionate amateur street artists, encourage them to live the world they love and bring a fresh evolution to street art world in the future, in which there will be no longer boundaries between female and male artworks, and the prejudice of women’s status on artworks would be just a history.
Additionally, at the end of tour, I hope that you could gain more knowledge about street art and street artists, and the ability to analyze and criticize an artwork more subjectively.
Additional search for more interest: Vexta, Miso, Mimby Jones Robinson, Precious Little, Klara, and I&theothers.