On Ryder Street, Darlinghurst, someone’s eating their heart out.

“While you make pretty speeches, I’m being cut to shreds,” says the graffiti.

It’s scrawled, but it doesn’t feel rushed. The writing doesn’t give much away.

“You feed me to the lions. A delicate balance.”

A poem?

UPDATE: Duh. Just got a tweeted reply. It’s a Radiohead song, ‘Like Spinning Plates,’ from Amnesiac. Of course it would be. There goes my stadium art rock cred.

This portrait appeared on Llankelly Place, Kings Cross, during the week. It’s by someone called esile.

Whoever made it, their character looks concerned. But I would be too if I had four eyes.

He’s on a stool and peering around the corner.

I found him on Jesson Lane, Surry Hills. It’s the back of a restaurant, which is really on Crown Street. I love how this cute chap with his stubbly facial hair and long nose shows himself as you walk down the (dead-end) lane.

What he’s trying to see, I don’t know.

This instant gallery is a long way from Dubbo, that’s for sure. It’s under the Burton Street bridge on Barcom Avenue, Darlinghurst.

That’s just one piece of paper fixed on the wall. But there are plenty more, fixed to the walls with fat slathers of glue. The DIY gallery runs on the walls on both sides of the avenue. Lots of names checked, and plenty of different styles.

Lots of collages. Mostly printed on paper. But otherwise, not much in common.

It seems like the work of a bunch of artists, maybe an art class?

[UPDATE June 7, 2010]
Turns out it *is* a group of artists, thanks to Hamish in the comments below. It’s a crew called International Noise – some of their work points to a site at internationalnoise.org, but there’s nothing there. You can find out more at Valentina Schulte’s website, she’s a member of the group. Apparently it’s a Sydney based artist run initiative with local and international artists collaborating using guerilla tactics to do art on the streets.

This painting appeared on the corner of Langley Street and Kells Lane, just behind Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, a while ago. It’s very… old school tattoo.

I couldn’t place the name at first – Mr Perso’s – but then I hit the web and remembered. Mr Perso & Detch was the ‘legal graffiti company’ behind a spate of Green Day pieces on walls around the city last year. Can’t say I’m feeling the concept.

This legal by two of our favourite Sydney street artists, Numskull and Beastman, went up on Foveaux Street, Surry Hills, two weeks ago.

The pair’s sharp couplet: “they keep painting, we keep painting.”

“They keep getting rid of our stuff and we keep doing it again. It’s a pointless process,” said Numskull – the piece was triggered by yet another campaign against street art.

This appeared outside Surry Hills Library on Crown Street, and I couldn’t help thinking guerrilla marketing.

Look closer though. It’s actually nothing of the sort.

Bizarrely enough, it’s a research project. Part of the Visualising Research class at UTS, Poster: More Than A Gaze aims to “examine the potential of the poster as a ‘public and communicative’ medium in a public space.” They’re blogging too.

It’s 12 A4 pages pasted up alongside the typical band and club posters – and, although I used to have a radar for those things, I wonder how many people are tuned in? I’d be interested to see what, if any, reaction it got.

These characters are on the back entrance to a Little Riley Street terrace, just up from Devonshire Street in Surry Hills.

A bird, a skater, a man holding a child, a cat. Simple stencils, painted in black on a yellow wall. More ‘house proud’ than ‘street art’.

The back fence in this neighbourhood typically faces dirt, rubbish and needles – which makes it an unexpected site for personal expression. But it’s also where people park their cars, have backyard barbecues and and handball matches.

The ultimate aspirational Surry Hills pad: home, family and… a good looking back fence.

Darlinghurst’s hectic Victoria Street, just outside the Wicked Weasel emporium. It’s a place where people spend every weekend, pretty much all the time, bumping up against boundaries… But in this tiny corner, someone’s made a claim.

You can usually see a homeless man on this bench. He engages all passers in conversation, ‘though we can rarely keep up. He often has a bag of jumbled up food, just like the one sitting there.

Once, walking past, there was a wallet lying on the ground open, with cards and things scattered.

But whatever the usual life of this area, the claim says, this corner is just off limits. They even added an extra ‘m’ for good measure.

This almost radioactively green tree popped up on Hayden Place, Surry Hills.

It’s winter, so an obvious time for a small but well proportioned green tree to appear on the street. The colour and consistency of the colour, as well as the shape, suggests a mushroom cloud, too. So not just winter, but a nuclear winter.