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