Simeon Jones is responsible for some of Adelaide's favourite murals. CityMag chatted with him about the power of street art and his latest work, the Violinist.
June 20, 2024
Culture
Street art that strikes a chord
The first mural Simeon Jones painted during the height of the Covid pandemic was Fleabag actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the wall near the car park at Tennant Court, a short walk from Victoria Square.
“I’m just a big fan of Phoebe, she’s such a girl boss and I love the honesty of her characters and the realism of them,” he says.
In the same space, you’ll find Johnny Cash and Bruce Lee painted by Simeon. He had the permission of the owners to paint these three, but they were self-funded works. His art often nods to popular culture, also having painted scenes from Schitt’s Creek.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge mural. This picture: via Simeon Jones Instagram
“I enjoy being creative… those spaces ended up being like a teenager’s bedroom wall with kind of TV shows and ideas and concepts that I like and wanted to experiment with,” Simeon says.
A psychologist in his day job, Simeon is a muralist for the fun of it and is drawn to work where he can use creative storytelling.
“I’m quite fortunate that I don’t rely on the artwork for my income, which means I’ve got the option of being able to decide which projects I take on and which ones I won’t and, to be honest, I think if I had something that was too directed, I probably wouldn’t take it on,” he says.
The Violinist is part of the City of Adelaide’s UNESCO City of Music Laneways project and started as a broad concept and Simeon says the flexibility the council gave him allowed the work to evolve naturally.
“I think we really do need that flexibility,” he says.
“With the Adelaide City Council, I was able to tell them the broad strokes about what I was going to do, without them needing to have kind of the exact detail of the plan and they were kind of open to doing it that way, whereas another council approach might have such an intense set of requirements around getting a project through that it kind of takes any of the fun out of it.
“When you have a council area which is too restrictive and has to go through too much kind of consultation with the public and with council members, you end up getting kind of dried out and losing any of that sense of grit or emotion to it from my perspective.”
Janet Anderson, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, in front of Simeon Jones’ new mural The Violinist. Photo: Brandon Hancock via City of Adelaide
It took six days to paint the mural and around 60 hours to design.
Initially, Simeon experimented with three different kinds of violinists and styled and tweaked about 25 different background options before finding one that fit the aesthetic they were going for.
“So the violinist is somebody who kind of looks like a fairly modern kind of hipster girl, but, you know, playing the violin and also in front of a stained glass background, this kind of contrast of new and old,” he says.
Watch the mural being painted:
The Violinist came about with the support of George Kambitsis and the Kambitsis Group, who Simeon met when working on a project to paint a mural of someone waiting for a landline call for the Telstra building.
George was eager to have a mural at Rosina Street that referenced the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (ASO), who rehearse nearby.
Simeon hopes to encourage property owners to be open to opportunities to make city streets more vibrant with public art.
“That can be the most challenging thing. Actually finding the wall space,” he says.
“But there’s plenty of talented artists around the place who could continue to make it an interesting and vibrant kind of city and continue to add some great pictures.
“So I want to really encourage people who own the buildings to throw out their walls to allow artists to express themselves and kind of give room to see what can be created.”
Simeon says street art contributes to the overall well-being of a city by encouraging people to be present.
“It’s really easy to go through life looking down or looking at your phone or not really paying attention to what’s around you,” he says.
“It’s really easy to be on that kind of cruise control mode if we’re not careful about it and I think that in relation to street art, and street art that’s eye-catching, it actually draws people out of their internal worlds, and draws people out of their phones, and brings them into the present.
“Things which draw people out of themselves into the present is so positive for mental health, for anxiety, for depression, you know, bringing people out into the world.
“I really hope that the street art that I put out there and other people put out there can help people’s attention in a way which helps them engage the world around them, and lift their mood and their sense of themselves in the world.”
Simeon’s current workplace is near the Fleabag, Johnny Cash and Bruce Lee murals, and he sees the effect it has in real life and online.
“One of my favourite things is when I drive into work in the back alley, is seeing the people who actually walk through that car park around the bus station, intentionally walking around the walls, so rather than it used to be the most direct route, now people are intentionally taking photos, looking at them,” he says.
But, given he didn’t intentionally seek out a career as an artist, Simeon says it still catches him off guard when people connect with his art.
“I see many people on social media who’ve posted pictures in front of the Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which is really nice.
“My daughter a couple of months ago, showed me a TikTok with somebody who had, like a horrible day, and then turned around and saw the Phoebe Waller-Bridge [mural] and kind of felt like the universe was smiling on them, which is a really nice thing to hear.
“I do love when you see people catching the in-jokes around it as well, or kind of picking up the nuance… as humans, often we connect with things and we don’t express it to other people so it’s really cool, and you see other people who pick that up and are big TV fans.”
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