A Guide About the Best Melbourne Street Art

Street art is unarguable, next to coffee and food, a cultural icon of Melbourne CBD. Its many laneways boast some of the best Australian Street Art featuring the artworks of hundreds of local and international artists. As an art lover, I am always keen to explore new artworks in the city, and I spend time to uncover new and the best Melbourne Street Art.

Now let me take you on a virtual walk of the best of Graffiti Artworks in Melbourne.

Why Visit Melbourne Street Art

I believe seeing artworks while walking in the city is a more natural way of approaching art. Secondly, Graffiti Art is more popular because it’s becoming part of many redecorations and urban redevelopment projects. Furthermore, local graffiti artists have the task not only to adorn old buildings. But it also has the aim to bring back culture into the city by redesigning the urban life and making it to a more welcoming and inspiring place.

Street Art Themes

I was stunned by the beauty of artworks I recently stumbled upon while walking around Melbourne’s laneways. They encompass such a variety of themes, covering different patterns that mapped out the cultural journey of Melbourne over the years.

There are hundreds of street art themes: from food, lifestyle, to music, singers, actors, to art deco, to legends, fairy tales, to new age and more. Street art in Melbourne is not dull.  On the contrary, it is ever-changing and so inspiring. Bear in mind that no graffiti murals stay there forever. And very few stay there for years. On some streets and city laneways, artworks change weekly, on some days, on some monthly. On your street art walk, be sure to take lots of photographs of the artworks, they may not be there, on your next trip to Melbourne.

Best Melbourne Graffiti Lanes With Map

If you are visiting Melbourne, I can recommend staying in the CBD. From Federation Square, you can use the free-trams, to start your self-guided walking tour around Melbourne CBD. While Hosier Lane, ACDC Lane and Union Lane are the most famous streets in Melbourne for art, some other street art lanes are probably less known, but still, have plenty of excellent artworks from local artists.

There is a Melbourne Street Art sites map online. However, some of the listings may not be updated, as artworks continuously change over time. The best is to wander off and be inspired. Now let’s dive into some of the best Melbourne Graffiti.

Hosier Lane

While Hosier Lane is not my favourite street, there are some great artworks in there. It’s number one site for Melbourne Street Art. Indeed is a trendy street and the most known among travellers. Only two minutes walk from Federation Square, Hosier Lane easily attracts thousands of tourists who flock here every day to take photos.

Furthermore, it’s the central place targeted by taggers who spoil the artworks with black scribbles over the paintings. Here some of the photos I took on my last visit to Hosier-lane street art.

There is also some permanent street art in Hosier Lane. And the image you see here below is one of them.

ACDC Lane

You can walk across the central laneways, from Degraves Lane up to Union Lane and farther to ACDC Lane which is one of my favourite places for street art in the heart of Melbourne. On one of my visits, I was lucky enough to strike photos of these fantastic purple artworks dedicated to Prince, next to the Cherry Bar music.

The nearby Duckboard place has some more pieces of great street art too like this one.

Higson Lane

Higson Lane is a very hidden Street Art Lane in Melbourne close to AC/DC Lane, that you will not find on any map. This is famous for having various graffiti showcasing public people around the world. Here below a few about Elton John, Assange, Joker and many more.

Blender Lane

Blender Lane, near Queen Victoria markets, is one of the most famous streets in Melbourne being a buzzing hub for local graffiti artists in the city.  There is also the Blender Lane Artist Market, worth checking out if you are in town. Festivals, events, and workshops are organised on a regular basis too. I took this photo from the backend of Franklin Street, behind the backpacker hostel.

Collingwood and Fitzroy

Once you have gone through the central street art laneways, there are more places not to miss out and some of them are brimmed with lovely eateries too. You can keep exploring more and go to Collingwood and Fitzroy Graffiti, just 20 minutes walk from the city.

Collingwood Murals

Johnson Street in Collingwood is the significant place where you can see some of the best murals in Melbourne. It’s quite a long walk along Johnson Street, with many alleyways and side roads. You can spend hours traversing back and forth the area. With funky little shops of antiques and quirky stuff, it is an exciting place, if you love art. Some of the graffiti murals I liked, among these great artworks, are the iconic Vespa and the abstract painting of the child’s face.

From Johnson Street, keep walking up to the Easy Street to bump into an iconic building of Melbourne, the End to End Building, which has three old train carriages on the rooftop – that turned into a night-bar. This makes this area truly unique for street art.

On all buildings around Easy Street and Budd Street, you can marvel at many different types of street art and graffiti. I loved the artistic decoration of this grey building with these quirky giant flowers and birds, painted in black and white shades.

In this area, you find many more portraits of famous people, animals and many more interesting subjects. Love the mural art with the wolf.

Fitzroy Graffiti Art

If you keep walking from Budd Street, you end into Brunswick Street, and there you enter into another large and unique area for top street art Melbourne. The main project is the Rose Car Park, which was completed in 2014. All the area nearby is portraying more artists.

You shall not miss out on the Grace Cafè, I walked in to take a glimpse of the artworks, and they were stunning!

The outside is also spectacular, a mural reproducing a fraction of the famous painting from Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. These below are some of the artworks from the colourful Rose Car park.

In the nearby Rose Street, there is Rose Street Market held on Sunday, with many local art stalls.

Pin it for later!

Check all Destinations in Australia
Go back to Rocky Travel Homepage