It's a small laneway hidden just off Hunter Street near the intersection of Stewart Avenue, sandwiched between two of the city's most recognisable street art pieces. You would be forgiven for missing it. The works on the street side of one of the city's arterial roadways probably grab the most attention from drivers passing by on the daily commute, but if you know where to look, there's something intriguing and unexpectedly authentic hiding around the corner.
You know you're getting close when you see the wild and monstrously winged eye, set against a backdrop of bubble lettering, that guards the entrance like an urban Cerberus. A closer look inside reveals the work of more than a few artistic hands melting and clashing, exploding together in a kind of neo-psychedelic haze of colour.
The artist, Chris Butler, was adding to expanding the street canvas on Tuesday afternoon. A few years ago, the narrow laneway was a drab mix of grey and brick walls littered with the scrawled tags of spray paint vandals and the detritus of a forgotten city street. But lately, it has exploded in colour.
Mr Butler has been a street artist for more than 20 years. It wasn't illegal street art that inspired his creative process, he says but hints that some of his earliest works might not have been entirely legal either. He credits the Windale PCYC for teaching him his craft as a young artist, where a few local artists ran informal workshops before the students took over and became the teachers.
"I definitely wasn't great at the beginning," he said. "I definitely wasn't painting stuff like this when I started. But it has been a labour of love."
Mr Butler's most recent work, commissioned by the owner of the property he was painting on Tuesday, is an unabashedly modern pop clash of colour and expression. As he spoke with Topics, he was marking out the initial lines of the cool-guy emoji's sunglasses. Behind him, a Banksy-inspired likeness of Hunter boxer Les Darcy against a splash of lettering.
The artist says there are maybe 40 like him in the region, just enough that he can recognise the work of several of his colleagues on sight, and casually points out a few on the opposite wall.
"This is an unusual thing to get into," he said, "I was into drawing when I was young, but to revolve around letters, especially to begin with, I guess, is fairly unusual. But I started when I was 18 - I'm 41 now - so, you're looking at about 23 years, or just about, and there was already a rich history of graffiti long before I came around."
He remembers one of the city's signature legal graffiti spaces at South Newcastle Beach, near the old skate park, where artists could practice their styles and add to the canvas. He wants to see more spaces like that become available for emerging street artists.
There's a growing body of research around the world arguing that street art promotes a sense of community voice and character in urban spaces that disincentivises vandalism; what may have seemed like an irony to generations past is proving true street art and graffiti can be good for the community.
"I walked down here this morning, and all I wanted to do was pick up all this stuff," Mr Butler said, gesturing at some scattered trash about the corners of the lane.
I asked at one point how he felt, as an established artist, about the possibility that an illegal graffiti artist could come along and tag his work at some point. "It happens less with time," he replied. "There is a certain respect that's involved, a certain amount of artistic respect.
"Nobody really wants to come and paint a bubble letter over the top of something like this," he added, gesturing to the collage of artists' works in the lane. "It's the unwritten rules that we all abide by.
"Look, there might be some people who don't appreciate seeing it, but there are definitely some that do."
Just outside the lane, the Packing Room Prize-winning artist Adnate's refurbished mural on Stewart Avenue had only been re-opened a few weeks after it was vandalised beyond repair. The new iteration of the sprawling mural recreates an earlier work of the artist that was painted further down the street but ultimately demolished as part of the Stella Apartment tower build.
Mr Butler is drawn to the immediacy of street artas he says, "It puts it in front of people's faces." There are no gallery shows or prints to buy, no collectors with hoarded collections; the art is everywhere, permanent and impermanent at the same time.
"The thing at the front here is a great example," he said, pointing out the eye - all tail and teeth - at the mouth of the lane. "It's unusual that it could be such a prominent thing ... it could get painted over at some stage with something else, but it's interesting.
"I love it when someone can say they love seeing that or think it's cool. And they might not be an artist, or a writer, or anything like that. I've always enjoyed that part of it."
