International Women’s Day | Tuesday 8 March 2022 (above image: (internationalwomensday.com)
Every year on 8 March, International Women’s Day (IWD) is acknowledged around the globe in celebration of women and girls contribution to their communities.
Knowing that street art creates a sense of pride, inclusion and belonging (internationalwomensday.com) this year Discover Frankston is celebrating the creative role women have played in transforming Frankston’s skyline by focusing on the IWD Women Creatives Mission. On this significant day let us take you through the work that talented female street artists have contributed to Frankston’s street art scene and recent national award winning (Friday 4 March) walking street art tours.
Frankston’s streets and lane-ways are a world of colour, creativity and design, transformed through street art since the inaugural Big Picture Fest (Festival) in 2018. Set to return for the 5th year in 2022 (14-20 March), we want to shine a light on the work of the women who have been integral to this movement.
Since the Festival, Frankston City has become a canvas for many female street artists of national and international acclaim. The festival has featured some of the largest female names in the street art business who take to the streets of Frankston in what’s becoming one of the world’s premier street art festivals (Forte Mag, 25 Feb 2022). Festival curator Joel Moore says:
"every single woman who has joined our festival has been a pillar of hard work, creativity and generally lifted the level of our festival year after year. As the brand owner I couldn't be happier with the growing involvement in our community by a diverse group of strong women".
Let's now take a look at the work over the years, starting with the festival in 2018. Lucy Bonnin, from Adelaide (Lucy) and Loretta Lizzio, from Victoria (Lizzio) were two of the first female artists involved in the festival. Lucy took to Gallery Lane with ‘Mary-Jayne’; artwork that conjures memories of childhood play and wonder. Whimsical bubbles and plaited hair fill the wall like a memory that floats across your thoughts.
Lucy’s diverse work, painting tonal realism with a signature touch of surrealism, really captured the attention of many locals in what has now become one of our signature pieces that is photographed regularly.
Lizzio took to Stiebel Place with ‘Ash She Lay’. This artwork was inspired by reconnecting with nature. Lizzio believes that immersing yourself in nature regularly has a great impact on humans flourishing in our social, psychological, and emotional life.
Lizzio is a Gold Coast based artist and illustrator whose work adorns walls and galleries throughout Australia and beyond. Her work explores romanticism, nature and evokes a strong sense of nostalgia. Forgotten fairy tales, spectacles of cinema, fleeting glances and dog eared National Geographics are Lizzio’s inspiration to make art and tell her stories.
Lizzio wanted to bring a little piece of this to the backstreets of Frankston.
Contact Loretta Lizzio.
Lucy Lucy, French-Parisian born artist residing in Melbourne, headlined the 2019 Big Picture Fest with her work Hypnagogia, located on Gallery Lane. This bright and meaningful piece captures the elusive joy and wonder of the lucid dreaming state by depicting a bedtime traveller, wandering around the subconscious landscapes.
Lucy Lucy’s work moves between large-scale public murals, gallery work, tribal ornaments and bespoke fashion. She has been painting murals and exhibiting in France, the US, Canada, Thailand, Australia, and the UK.
Her paintings capture the evolving folklore of the feminine, exploring symbols of the energy through archetypal portraits of muses, queens, mothers or goddesses who all share the art and privilege of being a woman. Lucy Lucy’s work intends to bring to the surface the inherent feminine drive to share, collaborate, and care in order to balance with the masculine rules and heritage of achieving. The perfect message for IWD.
Abbey Rich, from Victoria (Rich) and Melbourne Murals, from Victoria joined the festival in 2020.
Returning to her home town of Frankston to make this work, Rich’s work in Thompson Lane focuses on her relationship to the environment. Abstract shapes come from cellular structures to represent pathways and a return to home. A contorted body hangs from the roof, feeling unsettled but also somewhat comfortable. The colours flow across the three sides of the building to create a cohesive yet multi-faceted work.
Rich is a multidisciplinary artist working across canvas, walls and the body. Once at the helm of a fast growing fashion label and showing at VAMFF, Rich is now an exhibiting artist managing an impressive list of freelance contracts, painting murals for the likes of Monash University, Bailey Nelson and countless retail spaces.
Rich’s work focuses primarily on the organic relationships we foster between each other and the natural world. Her work has been featured in publications such as i-D, VICE and Frankie magazine and exhibited in gallery spaces such as forty-five downstairs, No Vacancy Gallery and more.
Brigitte Lawson and Melissa Turner,the women behind Melbourne’s Murals, are no stranger to Frankston. Their work explores childhood memories and celebrates local stories including Stacked Booked Shelves, Alice in Wonderland, All the Green Year and Flower Girl (collaboration between Bayside Centre Vicinity Centres and the Bunurong Land Council) are dotted across the landscape of the city.
The work of the team has been featured on major news networks, been published by the Australian Government and embassies across the globe, and showcased on billboards in Miami and Brazil. You will often spot artwork by Melbourne’s Murals on album covers, FOX race cars and in the background of many films and documentaries. You may recognise their powerful piece, ‘COVID Heroes’ which highlighted the contribution of frontline workers during the pandemic.
Returning to Frankston for the 2020 Big Picture Fest, Brigitte and Melissa, were ready to make a bold entrance and that they did with their choice of a lion named ‘Fearless’ in Shannon Street Mall in the hopes that it would remind viewers to be brave and fearless in the face of adversity.
Contact Melbourne’s Murals.
In 2021 Wina jie, from Frankston, Melanie Caple, from Melbourne and Maxine Gigliotti, from Frankston joined the Big Picture Fest artist alumni.
Wina Jie works as a freelance Graphic Designer with a Fine Art, Film and T.V. background. Specialising in designing art murals, Photography and Illustrations, Jie creates imagery exploring the Asian Australian identity experience. Her past body of work explores self-portraiture with Hybrid Eastern and Western creatures and landscapes.
Jie’s piece titled ‘Rise’, located in Thompson Lane asks the viewer to face their inner demons in order to find inner peace. The artwork honours Jie’s Eastern background by incorporating the dragon and the depiction of the ‘Superhero’ self as the girl in artwork. Rising above fear to answer your calling in life, in Jie’s it is the pursuit of my her practice with stronger determination and being grateful for the opportunity to contribute to society in a positive Light.
Working with local high school students, Melanie Caple’s design for the mural in Thompson Lane; ‘Coastal and Urban - Frankston’ in collaboration with Frankston High School, came about while being influenced by a few things – Frankston as an urban city, Frankston as a coastal city, and the high school student’s creativity with colour and design.
Over the last decade, Caple has developed her practice to incorporate finely detailed oil paintings and large-scale exterior murals. Examining our relationship with the botanical world around us and with a focus on immortalising a sense of place, she uses native flora to activate walls and canvases to draw attention to the fragility and vibrancy of our landscape.
Caple has exhibited in various group exhibitions and has staged solo exhibitions around Melbourne and in Gippsland, including a major solo exhibition in 2015 at the Latrobe Regional Gallery as the recipient of the annual Dick Bishop Memorial Award. Most recently she was a finalist in the 2019 KAAF Art Prize, the Winner of the 2016 People’s Choice Award in the Roi Art Prize, and a finalist in the 2018 Collins Place Art Prize. She was selected as a feature artist in the 2021 Yarram Chalk Art Festival, facilitated a large mural as a part of the 2020 VicHealth funded Girls Own Space program, and her murals can be found across Melbourne and South Gippsland.
Caple will be working on another wall in Thompson Lane for the 2022 Big Picture Fest.
Caple has since continued working in Frankston and more recently has commissioned works in Seaford including ‘Butterfly Noir,’ and ‘Swamp Gum, Tea Tree and Coastal Banksia’
Maxine Gigliotti is a Frankston based artists who spends half her time painting and the other half teaching and performing circus. Gigliotti grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, fascinated by the natural world around, drawing the beautiful birds and animals she’d see. This love of nature has continued into adulthood with most of her inspiration coming from the environment. Her passion is to make and share art that brings joy to the community and highlights our natural world.
Gigliotti Big Picture Fest mural stars the native Blue Banded Bees that can be found in our own backyards here in Frankston! These beautiful insects are very small, just over 1cm, but are super important for pollinating our native plants. Unlike the honey bee, they ‘buzz pollinate’ by vibrating their wings which for some native plants is the only way they can be pollinated. Bringing native flowers into our gardens will help attract these beauties and keep our environment thriving. Next time you’re in the garden maybe you will see some of these blue beauties dancing around your flowers!
In 2022 we are excited to welcome George Rose, a Melbourne-based artist who spends most of her time climbing up ladders and painting murals. Since abandoning her formal design training several years ago, she has opted to pursue a multidisciplinary art practice to use colour, gradients and type to spread her uplifting messages.
Rose has spent the last several years travelling from one project to another, rarely in one city for longer than a few months as she completes art commissions for a diverse range of clients. She has recently worked with Brown Brothers, Instagram, Mastercard, Melbourne Central and Star Wars to name a few. If she’s not completing work for commercial projects, she’s on the global street art festival circuit including Colour Tumby, First Coat, Perfect Match, Roskilde, Street Prints, Tropica, Wall to Wall and Wonderwalls. Rose has also been the recipient of some award-winning work including the Borrowed Wall Art Prize for Liverpool City (2016) and the Skate Park in Canberra (2017).
You can’t stop someone who knows where they’re going and we are very excited to see what Rose creates during the festival.
14-20 March the Big Picture Fest is returning to Frankston. 15 fresh murals will be added to the city’s streets and laneways and free street art walking tours and a Block Party celebration are all on the cards.
As Frankston’s transformation continues, make some time to head into Frankston to admire the work of our internationally renowned artists. You will be in awe of their scale, colour and location, but more so, the inspirational messages behind each and every one.
Speaking of inspiration, we couldn’t not mention the IWD 2022 street art piece located in Darwin. Street art is a great way to spread positive IWD messages across communities and we can see that this great creative collaboration will have a strong connection with the community and help #breakthebias
Artist: Ms Snaps and Mikaela a local Larrakia woman. Picture: (internationalwomensday.com)
We are so lucky to have amazingly creative women contributing to street art scene in Frankston and around the world, helping to spread positive messages across communities and leading the way for future women to make their mark in the creativity industry.
‘Together, we can all break the bias - on International Women's Day and beyond and celebrate women and girls working creatively to make a difference’