Art puts focus on positives for youth

Graffiti artist Marino Duke in front of his latest piece for the Whangarei Youth Space. He believes there is plenty of talent in Whangarei, it just needs to be harnessed. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A Whangarei graffiti artist who has been teaching youth in workshops says the district is full of young talent that just need direction and somewhere to paint.

Marino Duke, 20, who holds graffiti art workshops at the Whangarei Youth Space, is calling for more graffiti-friendly murals around town so up-and-coming talents can hone their craft and established artists can get recognition for their work.

"There's a lot of talent out there. It just needs some direction. And there needs to be a stage for them to work on," he said.

Mr Duke, who is also studying whakairo (carving) at the Whangarei campus of Te Wananga o Aotearoa, recently finished a 3 metres by 3m piece for Youth Space.

He travels with fellow artist Rodrigo Rozas to the Kaikohe Skate Park, where they can paint legally. "It's something we really love. I'd like to see a lot more murals around town, that's where we can get recognition for our art."

He has been interested in graffiti art "since I can remember", but said it wasn't until Year 10 at Kamo High School that he was inspired by his science teacher to pick up the spray cans for artistic reasons.

"Some of the stuff we do now [like the workshops], I would have loved to have done back then."

The workshops came hot on the heels of a youth forum looking at ways to address tagging held last month.

The forum was organised by the Youth Space after figures from the Whangarei District Council (WDC) showed 24,673 tags had been cleaned up in the year to August. The council spends $500,000 a year on vandalism, including tagging removal.

"Tagging is something I definitely don't like seeing," Mr Duke said. "We hear how much money is spent on removing it."

One of the ideas to come out of the forum included dividing Butter Factory Lane up and dedicating each section of the wall to a different youth group, which would be required to look after it, said the WDC's Owen Thomas. Other ideas included having more youth workers to help Whangarei's young people make better choices and more solutions, such as workshops for young artists. "I found the exercise very engaging and positive, [it] was a great example of when you talk and listen to each other you often find out you want the same thing - to make things better," Mr Thomas said.

"We must remember not all youth deface/vandalise our community, only a few.

"This is not an excuse, vandalism is unacceptable but you need the right tools in the tool box to help fix this. Our city is full of awesome young people and we must help all of them to go forward because we all live here."