CFY Illawarra work

Welcome to the CFY Blog and online portfolio. To start of with please check out some of the work below and stay tuned for regular updates as more projects are completed throught out the year.

Glebe ‘Respect’ and Enjoy Glebe’

As is evident in the before shot shown here, a number of walls in the Glebe area were looking the worse for wear and identified as sites for potential youth arts projects. NRMA funding aimed at promoting safety and harmony in the community was administered through the local Glebe Youth Service to produce a series of large scale murals.. A series of design sessions prompted local young people to develop designs which reflect a pride in the local area and the sense of identity the youth feel with their community. Under the supervision and mentoring of Stuart from CFY Illawarra a series of works were completed, the two pictured here having received fantastic support from the locals and praise for the young people involved in conceptualizing and executing these iconic murals.

Google ‘Doodle for Google’

As a component of its Australia –wide arts competition to design a themed homepage, Google hosted a day long event for the winners and finalists at Darling Harbour. CFY Illawarra staged an interactive youth aerosol arts activity which stole the show. Groups of young people could try their hand at aerosol art, with all safety equipment supplied and an expert aerosol artist on hand to assist. The company branding was maintained using CFY Illawarra’s experience in accurate signage reproduction and finished entirely in aerosol. At the end of the day after engaging dozens of young people the finishing touches were added to very popular arts activity which was then able to be taken back to head office and displayed.

Google ‘XLR8’

CFY Illawarra was also involved in producing graphics for foyer of the ‘XLR8” Asia Pacific Conference which took part at Technology Park. Complex digitally produced graphics were scaled up onto to flats on site, producing an amazingly economical and fast section of branded event signage. Shown is both the art reference and finished product, as well as a shot of the artwork serving as a backdrop for the recording of interviews of VIP’s.

Home And Away

CFY Illawarra’s diverse experience in theming, signage, aerosol art and project management saw a series of jobs completed for long running drama Home And Away. The brief required the production of ‘graffiti style’ graphics on a number of scenic flats in a fictitious youth spot ‘The Den’. The artwork included accurate scaling up of finished art and attention to job details specific to working in television, such as sourcing matt aerosols to avoid glare of gloss finished artwork. The job was completed ahead of time and projected costs at short notice, with staff very pleased with the result.

Sexual Health Week Youth Centre mural

Many of the clients of CFY Illawarra are youth agencies with a mission to provide information and referral on particular topics. The natural fascination young people have with aerosol art and the opportunity to paint an entire wall at their centre was all the incentive required to engage a number of young people with the important safe sex message. Young people who would otherwise not participate in focus groups and educational sessions were attracted to the project by the aerosol art opportunities. The designs they created are reinforcing lasting messages regarding sexual health to everyone in the centre long after sexual health week finished. CFY Illawarra is unique in that it can provide staff who are experienced qualified youth workers in addition to being expert aerosol artists. This ensures that art projects deliver targeted, informative content in line with key organisational goals and best practice in the welfare industry.

Surrealist Artwork

The artwork in this picture was the culmination of a number of different goals converging from the educational, civic and street art spheres. Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design have for a number of years allowed students interested in aerosol art the opportunity to work in this fun media. This includes programs in the school, such as during Art Week as a feature two day workshop and also as ongoing shorter extra curricular sessions in the Street Art Club. For this work students who had been studying surrealist art designed a mural in school, which was then executed in aerosol as part of an Art Week workshop facilitated by CFY Illawarra on site at the school. The mural was painted on large boards which were then taken and installed in a nearby laneway, beautifying an otherwise drab and neglected area. This system has been used on a number of projects by CFY Illawarra, allowing works to be created in a studio environment at the artists leisure then installed on a suitable site quickly with minimal disruption to the area.

Fish ‘School’ Wall

Although working with predominately secondary school aged young people, CFY Illawarra has also worked in a number of primary school aged projects. This wall was painted on boards by a number of young people in after school hours care, and sees the popular fish characters of a well known movie incorporated into a ‘school’ design, with a number of media from aerosol to brushes and hand prints used to complete the work. The fun and easily fixed properties of aerosol make it an ideal media to use with young people as it is immediate, novel and if they make a mistake, easily corrected. CFY Illawarra is unique amongst the many art project facilitators as it encourages artists of all ages and stages to work hands on through the project, with the process and participation valued as highly as producing a aesthetically pleasing final result.

Vehicle Art Wraps, 2007-09.

CFY developed a unique art format to produce this series of art buses, the beach scene completed by young people as part of a school competition, and the Christmas scenes as part of yearly Christmas celebrations at Port Botany STA. The process involves drawing on CFY Illawarra’s extensive sign craft experience to laminate a blank, paintable layer of substrate to the exterior of the buses, which could then be painted with conventional student acrylics or aerosols. The paintwork beneath is left undamaged, the vehicle retains complete roadworthiness and functionality, and at the end of the required run the graphics peel off easily like giant stickers. The completed artwork receives a heavy duty clear protective coating before going into service, initially guaranteed to last six months some of these unique art projects are still in service in top condition after two and a half years!

Mixing Desk

A quick job based on photo realism and Tromp L'Oeil in a friends music studio saw the creation of this life-sized sampling machine. The work took only a couple of hours and provided a very striking piece of theming for the studio foyer and the back drop for many amusing photos.

Edgeware school Mural

This wall was completed in as part of an activity in a school, aimed at combining the beautification of a neglected area of the grounds with an opportunity for a number of taggers to experience more in-depth mural creation. In one half day session participants brainstormed and discussed designs, with concessions to the school of legibility and inoffensive content allowing the students to produce a letter based ‘piece’ which works as both school promotion and a credible piece of classic graffiti style.

St George Illawarra Mural

This football themed work was a creative approach to cleaning up a repeatedly tagged wall near the team’s home ground. Young people were invited to help create the work over the space of one morning, building skills in conventional aerosol art techniques as well more traditional fonts and illustrative styles. The wall has since received little damage and the project was a far more effective and value-added use of council funds than the previous attempts at cleaning and removal.

Triple M Artworks

A major function for radio station Triple M featured a series of custom canvas flats produced by CFY Illawarra. The brief was to incorporate the orginal winged guitarist mascot and logo into a set of flats as part of the decoration of an 80’s style music event. CFY Illawarra designed, painted and manufactured these free standing artworks which once the event concluded made great one of a kind souvenirs.