The Lasting Legacy

of Abyss607

A Mustard Flats Photo Essay

Foreword by Mustard Flats

Abyss607 is an artist who couldn't be missed on the walls and streets of Canberra from the late noughties to 2014 when he moved to Melbourne. His unique style mixed tagging, graffiti and street art and was an exercise in mass distribution and the search for the untouched surface. These factors are why, a decade on, the legacy of Abyss607 largely still stands.

Mustard Flats has been on the search for that legacy over the last few weeks and presents our first photo essay. Featuring words from some of his collaborators that are still active in Canberra.

Almost all of his pieces were achieved in rapid fashion, illegal billboards that tell a story across the city's underbelly. Works that on their own could seem vandalous, unintelligible, or disruptive to the passing observer but, when combined and followed, tell a story of a mythical world that the audience needs to discover. The city is the narrative and the artworks are just the characters.

They give an insight into the mind of a secretive artist and explain why his work became synonymous with Canberra and changed the street art landscape.

The nature of the work made him stay out of the limelight, and as such rarely spoke about the iconography used in his work, what he called the Seer.

“They are watchers of time and space, on the walls they guide the heart and the spirit with strength for those who view them with unchained minds.”

Abyss607 speaking with janie2095, 2013

Before the Blank Walls of Braddon there was Abyss607 and he helped expand the minds of what street art in Canberra could look like and shaped what it has become.

Tagging's objective is to be seen and to be noticed on a mass scale at all costs. The art of it comes from the sum of its parts across a landscape. Abyss brought that philosophy to street art, doing quick tag style pieces that looked more like murals.

While graffiti and tagging can be polarising the impact they can have is undeniable. As artists rise through the noise of cluttered walls (‘Dino’, Nemo & Okie some of the recent crop to have that cut through) it forces its way into the culture of a place and seeps into the zeitgeist. In some cases crossing over into galleries and mainstream acceptance. (Luke Chiswell’s ‘beard face’ another local example)

These ‘disruption’ artists are honing their craft in the public eye and gifting the community their work. If we are to be open to art in the streets we can’t fully pick and choose what it is.

The Abyss Seer is unusual in that it has stood the test of time, surviving a decade of development, government buffs and business rejuvenation. Which leaves the question why?

This is what made Abyss607 so prolific

Black abstract line drawing on a white background, featuring various curved and straight lines and shapes. Artist Abyss

Urban Canberra scene with graffiti-covered buildings, a pigeon perched on the roof, another pigeon flying, parked cars, and colorful crates in the foreground. The background includes leafless trees and a partly cloudy sky. Artist Abyss

Graffiti artist Abyss art on a corrugated metal building with two pigeons perched on top, against a backdrop of leafless trees and a cloudy sky.

Street art mural on a beige wall showing a blue fish with a yellow eye and a yellow bird with a white eye, both appearing to face each other. The mural includes a quote about civilization ending at the waterline, attributed to Hunter S. Thompson, written in light blue text above the artwork. Below the mural, there are various colored trash bins and shopping carts in front of the wall, with graffiti and signs on the containers.

I think it’s impossible to remove Abyss from the fabric of the Canberra street art scene. He pushed it forward so much for all those painting walls.

He was truly prolific, ‘gifting’ such as huge amount of art all around Canberra and in the process inspiring a bunch of younger artists at the time.

Houl

Artist & Collaborator

Cunningly rendered, well sited, and bulk output.

BYRD

Artist & Collaborator

An abstract illustration featuring a face with a stylized eye with red and white accents and other decorative elements like curved lines and dots.

A building with graffiti art and a mural of a creature with horns. Above it, there is a billboard or sign with the words "BREAKFAST BRUNCH LUNCH CATERING FUNCTIONS".

A multi-story building with a black exterior and large windows. There is a white railing on the balcony and some plants are visible. Part of a graffiti mural featuring a colorful creature with horns is painted on the brick wall below. The photo appears to be taken from below, possibly from inside a vehicle, with some blurred foreground elements.

A close-up view of a planter box filled with various green plants, located on a sidewalk. The planter box is black, and the sidewalk surface appears to be made of concrete paving stones with some painted elements. The background shows some wear on the wall and part of a curb.

“Abyss art was different to the New York inspired graffiti that was getting around town at the time (and still). It had an artistic feel with early street art vibes even before street art became a thing, well in Canberra anyway”

Parli Funk
Canberra Graff Historian

Graffiti artwork on a concrete wall featuring a colorful, stylized dog with a comic book style eye, surrounded by various graffiti tags and designs.

Colorful graffiti art on a wooden surface depicting a stylized red, blue, white, black, and pink animal figure, possibly a wolf or fox, with intricate details and bold outlines.

He had that universe inside him and took every mode and method available to get it out there.

BYRD

Artist & Collaborator

“There’s a huge world that exists to his Seers that nobody but Abyss really understands. He’d chat about aspects of it, but you could tell that there was so much more than what he was letting on.”

Houl
Artist

Graffiti art on a yellow building wall featuring a cartoonish, pink and white unicorn with a cheerful smile and a raised middle finger. The building has a satellite dish on the roof and some leafless tree branches are visible in the foreground.

A Canberra city street scene with a building featuring graffiti art, including a cartoonish character with large eyes and pink accents. The building has a blue sign for an optometrist and various storefronts with graffiti on the shutters.

I just recall it being so refreshing to see a deep style in so many heaven spots.

John VOIR

Artist

Black graffiti-style tag on a white background.

A two-story brick building with murals on the side, surrounded by trees and parked vehicles, under a bright sky. Woden Canberra

Two people walking two dogs on a sidewalk in front of a brick building with murals, including an eye and a face, painted on the wall.

Graffiti-style drawing of a facemask with skull and clock elements, and abstract text and symbols surrounding it.

Graffiti art of a skull with tribal designs on a brick wall, next to a caged area containing large gas cylinders and a painted tiger face on the wall.

A group of cut-out images of sports balls, including soccer, football, and basketball, are laid out on the floor behind a chain-link fence, with a brick wall and some greenery visible in the background.

Graffiti mural of a stylized face with intricate black and white patterns on a wall at an outdoor bus stop, with a cloudy sky and trees visible outside.

His art wasn’t letter based (most of the time), but he still produced it in the same mediums as graff (stickers, paint, pens etc). You can say his art stayed up for many years because it was perceived as street art and not graff.

Parli Funk

A street scene with a graffiti mural on a beige brick wall, a pile of used tires, and a green grassy area in the foreground. The graffiti features stylized characters.

A blue sign on a red brick wall reads 'Private Property Authorized Persons Only.' The wall extends into the distance with a green lawn and trees in the background under a clear blue sky.

Black and white graffiti mural of a stylized creature with elongated features, on a brick wall background, with green grass in the foreground.

Drawn eye with a triangle above it, teardrop shapes on both sides, and a needle underneath.

Close-up of white chalk writing on a blackboard or chalkboard, showing part of a phrase or words in cursive style.

Close-up of a black metal pole with white graffiti art, installed on a red brick wall.

A metal outdoor utility box attached to a building with a brick wall in the background. There are colorful cartoon stickers on the box, including a character with a blue hat and red hair. To the right of the stickers, there is a faint black marker drawing of a smiling face.

A brick building with a dark tiled roof, graffiti art on the wall, surrounded by green bushes and trees, under a partly cloudy sky.

Residential brick house with black tile roof, chimney, and windows, under a cloudy sky with a TV antenna on the roof.

Ground-level view of a colorful graffiti mural on a brick wall featuring a cartoon character with spiky hair, large eyes, and a mischievous grin, surrounded by a graffiti-style background. Some plants in the foreground partially obscure the mural.

A black silhouette of a person standing on a hill, holding a flag. The scene appears to be at sunset or sunrise, with an orange sky and clouds in the background.

His Seers, whether people knew them by that name or not, were often the first thing people saw when they went looking for that underbelly of the Canberra art scene.

Canberra hadn’t fully embraced ‘street art’ as it seems to have done now, so we were all out there painting and hustling and pushing the scene forward. It was a lot more indie then, really led by the artists.

Houl

I think that the time when Abyss was in Canberra… that was the golden era of Canberra street art.

Houl
Artist