Ross Liew, Graffiato curator

Hanging art on pristine gallery walls has never appealed to Ross Liew.  

Instead, the curator of Taupō’s annual Graffiato street art festival prefers to embellish the spaces that people might cut through to get to work, or visit in order to smoke a sneaky cigarette. He is drawn to carparks, skip bin storage spaces, narrow alleyways and the unkempt backsides of commercial buildings. And he hasn’t always asked permission to paint. 

“What we were doing was illegal,” he says of the topical and sometimes politically-motivated guerrilla artworks he and fellow artists previously splashed across inner city  walls. “But we wanted to contribute something to the community where we lived and worked. I still want that. 

“I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of public space as a place to display art. Exhibitions in galleries and museums didn’t really make sense to me because you’re limiting your audience so much, you’re relying on people to walk in, instead of putting it on the street where thousands of people see it.” 

Which is exactly the opportunity he has offered fellow artists – with council permits and community approval secured – as head of the long-running, game-changing Graffiato event.  

Ross has curated the festival since its inception in 2011, helping to bring more than 100 murals in urban Taupō laneways and streets. It was the first event of its kind and continues to be the longest running street art festival in New Zealand.  

There is no doubt the town’s streetscape has changed as a result. But he is adamant Graffiato has also figuratively changed the landscape for street artists, who run the gamut from professionally-trained, studio-based illustrators to those who cut their artistic teeth tagging train carriages. 

“It has increased visibility of the art and the artists who make it. It’s been a major platform, it’s actually made them visible. It’s absolutely launched careers and it’s grown the demand and the market for this kind of art. 

“When we started, not a lot of people were able to make a living from this. Now, there’s a lot more artists able to do it.” 

He says Taupo has shown other towns and regions what is possible in terms of commissioning artworks or committing to hosting similar events. 

“A lot of places have done it since but, as it stands, Taupo is the only one that’s been able to do it for 10 years. That’s quite remarkable and special. I am proud of that legacy.” 

Ross says the temporary art form – some works have faded with the elements or been replaced by a new building - serves a multitude of purposes. Whereas early Graffiato events primarily focussed on enhancing and beautifying the town’s neglected service lanes, later works tend to reflect the region’s identity. Others may promote and provoke discussion or present ideas. 

He describes one mural that spells out ‘All that glitters.’

“It’s a huge piece that’s really visible, beautifully executed, in pleasing colour palette. It’s easy on the eye. But it’s a provocation. It’s making us think about the role of materialism in modern society. You have to finish the familiar phrase mentally. 

“In the beginning, a lot of artists came from the graffiti and street art tradition of self-promotion so it was about who they are and what they like to do. Now, most are thinking quite hard about what’s relevant to the place they’re in terms of the ecology, the environment, the history, the geography the social or built heritage. So we see a lot more stories about the people and the place.” 

He says participating artists have free reign to design and execute a piece in any style, on any subject. Yet one recent mural depicts a stylised scientific illustration of local fresh water fish species and several reference mana whenua or Maori origin stories from the Central Plateau region. 

Back home in Auckland’s New Lynn, Ross continues to produce community and privately-commissioned art. He is a father or two, an art teacher, a trained graphic designer with a masters degree in fine art and design. He is also a former recipient of the Asian New Zealand Foundation artist residency grant at Rimbun Dahan private arts centre in Malaysia. 

It was the axing of a part-time university job that provided his major career break. The redundancy payout allowed him to form a partnership with three friends who shared his interest in public art. The resulting Cut Collective leased a studio on Karangahape Road, collaborating on private or corporate commissions, using their earnings to help fund the public art projects they deemed worthy. Their legitimate community initiatives were interspersed with artistic acts of rebellion on back alley walls. 

“Either way, we’d always ask ‘does what we’re doing contribute to our community in some way’.” 

Ross says his ongoing involvement with the Taupo community has certainly helped him, too. He delights in seeing locals and visitors walking through the town, art map in hand, searching for murals in previously undervalued places. And the festival has vastly extended his network of relationships and friendships with artists from New Zealand and overseas.   

When he is working, wife Lara and children Sunny and Bo always opt to tag along so they can visit hot pools and the lake, or the skate park while he gathers equipment, organises documents and supports visiting artists before and during the event. 

“They get to do all the fun, leisure activities that I’m too busy to do. 

“But one of the main things I like about working in Taupo is that attitude of ‘let’s make it happen’. The buy-in from the community and business owners is really great. It’s about the people, they’re just awesome.”