The Wall Builder

Located on Gray Street Service Lane not on Gray Street itself. This one is easy to miss despite it's size, took a bit of hunting.

Created for the 2017 Paradox Festival

Fintan Magee is a Sydney based social realist painter, specializing in large-scale murals. He describes his work as a comment on the current anti-immigration mentality in Australia.

Drawing from personal experience and the mundane his figurative paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment and explore themes of waste, consumption, loss, transition, and the environment and his works contain a sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books and the Low Brow art movement.

“It’s a guy who is building a wall around himself and blocking himself away in the process. It’s a reaction to growing Trumpism in Australia and New Zealand the whole ‘build a wall’ and ‘stop the boats’ mentality. It’s more of a political cartoon disguised as a portrait."