Under wraps: an art commission to watch out for

A secret public art commission by graffiti artist Elliott Routledge aims to make the city pause for a cause in Art & About Sydney.
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Numskull: The future depends on today (2013) 32.5m x 2.65m acrylic and aerosol paint on plywood. Commissioned by Newcastle Art Gallery in conjunction with 2013 Hit the Bricks Festival, Newcastle, NSW. Image courtesy City of Sydney.

A top-secret public art project commissioned by the City of Sydney will be unveiled in the heart of the Sydney CBD for Art & About in September and October.

Sydney-based graffiti artist Numskull, aka Elliott Routledge, said Here, Now is to feature in Pitt Street during the three-week festival as one of the biggest public art installations of its kind ever shown in Sydney. ‘I can’t give too much away. There’ll be an ongoing process of unveiling it over a couple of weeks in the lead-up to the opening of Art & About.

‘It’s right in the heart of the city and hopefully people will stop and look. The city is such a busy place, my whole direction with this artwork is to make people stop and think, and take it in,’ he said.

Here, Now is just one of the many exciting events to feature during Art & About, which activates the City of Sydney across a three-week program of public art and performance celebrating art in unusual places. 

In what he describes as a time-poor culture, Routledge hopes people will be compelled to slow down to enjoy the art, and also just slow down in general. ‘Doing public art is always challenging because you get a direct response from the viewers who are surrounded by it every day.

‘You also get a direct interaction, [and] hopefully it’s a positive reaction. It’s always scary but it’s interesting to see the response that you will get,’ he said.

While Routledge studied animation, his first segue into art came via graffiti art, which he has practised since childhood. ‘I got into gallery work, murals, and now I do that as my career. I do a lot of my work in the inner west and paint around there. I’ve exhibited a lot in Sydney, had solo work in Melbourne, I had a residency in Vienna, and I travel a lot as well.

Routledge said he was approached by Creative Director Gill Minervini to become involved, and he was thrilled to be invited. ‘I paint a lot around the inner West. I guess she lives there and drives past my work every day, and she looked me up, and we’ve been working on it ever since. It was very random but cool.’

‘It’s a huge honour as well to do something for Art & About. I’ve always been interested in it, and seen it as a huge deal in Sydney. My artwork comes from a history of art murals and it places in into a large scale, spectacle. It’s kind of legitimised my work. It’s exciting to be involved in an event that the whole of Sydney can see,’ he said.

What and where: 

Here, Now by Numskull will be presented at 307 Pitt St during Art & About Sydney 2014, which runs from 19 September to 12 October.

See the mural being installed from 8 September.

For complete program details visit the Art & About website

This is a free event. 

Troy Nankervis
About the Author
Troy Nankervis is an ArtsHub journalist from Melbourne. Follow him on twitter @troynankervis