Ben Apfelbaum

PADDINGTON’S PERRY LANE ART PROJECT

On the western side of Melbourne’s CBD there are a series of laneways which comprise of walls covered in funky designs and a riot of colour. Every few years they are painted over for a new team of  artists to be unleashed on the lanes.  As a result they have become a tourist attraction.

Sydney has no central area to view interesting mural street art. There are a well known series along Bondi Beach promenade, one in Sydney’s Chinatown and many more scattered throughout the Newtown/Ashfield area.

Woollahra Council has commissioned a mural to be painted in Perry Lane.

They have paired with the University of New South Wales art campus to utilise their students to paint the mural both as a benefit to the community and a project for the students.

When I was there. there were already a number of finished paintings but the majority of the wall will be taken up by a beautiful, tropical, vibrant coloured jungle paradise theme.

Woollahra Council, once this project is completed, may well look for other laneways to decorate their municipality.

Who knows -Paddington and Edgecliff may well become a mural mecca?!

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.