Northbridge Street Art

This blog is a combination of a planned and an unplanned walk to explore the street art in Northbridge.

For our first walk (the orange trail on maps below) we explored the centre of Northbridge. We started at Chinatown where there are numerous artworks within the restaurant precinct. The artist I am the Wong chose a Chinese expression 'If people are of one heart, even the yellow earth can become gold' for his mural. This expression underpins the idea that when people stick together, anything can be achieved. As an example the Chinese community banded together and created their own place in Perth in spite of the White Australia Policy and anti-Asian attitudes on the goldfields.

Other art featured in the precinct:

From Chinatown we explored Nick's Lane to Roe Street and the little laneway that links Nick's Lane to the car park to see the gorgeous AMOK sugar glider and the curious creature by CURIOT.

At the back of the Roe Street carpark you will find Border Crossing. Get up close and you’ll see that the background notations are actually beautiful lines of poetry and a recipe for lime pickle! This beautiful mural, commissioned in 2012, formed part of the original Art Walking Trail - Perth.

From there we wandered past the DAEK murals at Arcade 189 (William Street).

We then followed William Street to James Street where we took the laneway between the Alex Hotel and the Alexander Library. Just be aware these laneways run behind restaurants and nightclubs so they can be a little confronting or unsavoury depending on when you are there.

Continue along the laneways to Aberdeen Street.

Reaching Francis Street follow the adjacent laneway to see our cover picture mural - Memory of the Land, a massive mural on the side of the TAFE building. The artist, Aec explains that the mural is symbolic of Australian history and nature and touches on eternity. Other enormous murals on the TAFE building are Migration, Self Protection of the Immigrant in Ourself and Rainbow Serpent, based on the Aboriginal mythological tale of the creator figure the Waugyl. The mural also features a numbat, a balga and a red tailed black cockatoo.

Continuing along Aberdeen Street you come across Baba Yaga's Houses. Inspired by a character in Eastern European folklore these funny little sculptures capture Baba Yaga, a witch who flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and lives in a hut that stands on dancing chicken legs.

Opposite TAFE is a mural featuring Perth rapper and Hip Hop artist, Robert Hunter - aka MC Hunter. Hunter died at the age of 36, after losing a two year battle with cancer.

This is where we leave the orange trail and follow the blue trail, continuing along Aberdeen Street past the beautiful kaleidoscope style mural by Perth artist Ian Williams and these wiry characters relaxing outside the TAFE Art and Design Centre. There are some lovely heritage buildings here.

Continuing along Beaufort Street you can see Lucy Vader's OMG sign in Weld Square. Opposite this sign turn into Little Parry Street. New murals at the Beaufort Street end include 10 mini murals +created by seven young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists aged 16+.

Continuing down Little Parry Street are numerous other fabulous murals.

As we emerged back on William Street we could see the eye catching black and white mural on the wall behind the Good Fortune Roast Duck House and the Northbridge sign on Forbes Road. You will see this gorgeous girl near the Northbridge sign and if you explore the carpark you will see more art. If you like the girl head back along William Street to Number 395 to see another stunning portrait.

Continue along William Street to to Newcastle Street to find The Ballad Of Gary Hayes on the side of The Moon Cafe. Do you recognise what is now Elizabeth Quay!

Opposite is the very pretty Red Tail and White Tail Cockatoos mural on the corner of Newcastle & William Streets.

At Newcastle Street turn down via Torre to see the new mural spanning the entire eastern wall of the laneway. The colourful mural was created by young people working with local artists.

At Aberdeen Street detour past the mouse on Lion Walk to explore Erichetti Place where you can spend quite some time taking in all the detail of the wonderful murals by Melski.

Back to Aberdeen Street, detouring at Lake Street to see the streetscape at Plateia Hellas. Return down Lake Street passing the wild animals at Holey Moley. We detoured along Francis Street where a couple of murals caught our attention before doubling back to see the small murals at Torre Butchers. If you continue to Russell Square you will see Melski's mural in the Wilson Car Park on James Street.

At Northbridge Piazza we found the swan and lady mural has been replaced by The Claim, a colourful dragon by Stephen Buckles, paying tribute to the cultural layers of neighbourhood. The Arch sculpture which spans the roundabout at James and Lake Street was removed for repair in 2023 and has not been replaced.. This 10m sculpture, made locally by Lorenna Grant was specifically designed to fit the roundabout and celebrate the opening of Northbridge Piazza in 2009. Now colourful painted shapes mark the roundabout.

From here we passed the Ice Cream Factory featuring colourful murals by Anya Brock. This rounded off our walk bringing us back to Roe Street near Chinatown.

The orange trail only took about an hour to walk....

but the blue trail took us to the outskirts and ended up taking 3 hours. This was an unplanned walk which had us wandering down some laneways with no art and backtracking to others that did have art - all part of the fun of exploring.

If you enjoyed reading this blog you might like to read about more art trails in my Art and About in Perth Blog or for hiking trails and urban walks head to https://www.outandaboutfnc.com/blog-1

I love wandering along trails, both marked and unmarked, and sharing my discoveries with my Out and About FNC community.  If you enjoy reading my blogs please consider a small donation which will be used towards the costs of keeping the website up to date and relevant.

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In the spirit of reconciliation Out and About- Family Nature Connection acknowledges the traditional owners of the Wadjak boodjar (Perth land) and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.