WATCH THIS SPACE: THE DTR CREW
Wild Style
Artist The DTR Crew (Dcypher, Ikarus, Wongi ‘Freak’ Wilson, Jacob Yikes) with Oi YOU! Street Art
Date October 2020
Location South Frame, Durham Street
In the quiet laneway leading from Durham Street to the Kahikatea Common in the South Frame, this vibrant production takes the viewer through a decades-spanning journey, celebrating graffiti art’s global and local legacies while also playfully riffing on popular culture icons.
Produced by Ōtautahi’s most renowned graffiti collective, the DTR crew (Dcypher, Ikarus, Jacob Yikes and Wongi ‘Freak’ Wilson) with support from OiYOU! Street Art and Ōtākaro Limited, the mural unfolds across 40 metres, with multiple narrative threads and surprising details to explore. The mural begins with a slab of concrete transformed into a New York subway car painted with graffiti before a Star Wars-inspired text crawl sets the scene.
Wall sections then draw from movies and television to evoke progressive time periods (from Back to the Future to Rick and Morty), while spray-can figures re-frame the evolution of graffiti artists within the famous march of progress, from a marker pen wielding tagger to a be-spectacled hipster street artist, a microcosm of the art form’s growth.
Explore more of Ōtautahi’s urban art on a Watch This Space guided street art tour! Email tours@watchthisspace.org.nz for booking information.
