TOM PARSO

Tom Parso is a professional graffiti/mural artist from Melbourne, Australia.

Beginning at the age of 11 when he first used a spray can, Tom has spent 22 years in the streets of Melbourne developing his skill and mastering his passion. Many long, late and lonely nights were dedicated to perfecting his different styles, studying different artists, finding a fresh new canvas and collaborating with some of Melbourne's best and most notorious graffiti artists and vandals.

In 2007 Toms family home was raided by police, he was charged with criminal damage relating to the many murals he had painted on the sides of Melbourne’s trains. This arrest prompted Tom to stop painting murals on trains, refocusing his energy into creating artworks in a legal manner as well as making his art more accessible to the general public. The arrest actually helped Tom grow as an artist as he was forced off the street and into galleries around Fitzroy. His work began to sell at group exhibitions, he began experimenting with new styles and concepts as he started to mature as a person. 

In the same year as his arrest, an associate of Tom’s and many other Melbourne based graffiti writers, sadly ended his own life, devastating his family and friends. While designing a mural dedicated to his lost friend, Tom inadvertently started to create the style he is best known for today. Combining a seemingly confused, abstracted pattern of fractals and straight lines that never touch or overlap, Tom builds his stylised letterforms to create a wild style of his own.

 
- With the popularity of street art booming around the world, what once was just a dream, a nightmare for my parents, a distraction from my teachers and a lot of exercise for the transit squad, becoming a professional artist has into a beautiful reality. I am now committed to painting murals full time as an artist.

As demand for experienced, skilled street artists with new ideas and fresh styles continues to grow and technology evolves to allow artists to go bigger, develop new styles with new techniques, more artists have the opportunity to earn money and afford the time needed to focus solely on their art. 
We are at the forefront of a generation of street artists who survived an era of violence and extreme dangers. Graffiti is the rawest but purest art form in the world. I understand the violence and trauma that my peers and I experienced due to this art and passion, I understand the trauma that will be passed down to the younger generations of artists unless the older generations lead by example and support young people.
 

Graffiti is the language of those who slipped through the cracks. It attracts people from every culture in the world because every culture in the world has the same problems. While a group of outsiders finding each other seems romantic in a sad way, in reality it’s very dangerous for those unable to defend themselves in the world of graffiti and vandalism. The graffiti sub culture teams the meek with the brave, the lovers with the fighters and the ultra violent with the ultimate pacifist. If the pacifist can’t use words to find safety the ultra violent will eat them alive. ‘I’ve had a knife held to my throat, a gun put in my mouth, I’ve been gang bashed and hospitalised for weeks, chased under a moving train, twice, bashed by off duty police, twice, witnessed stabbings, kidnappings, people thrown from bridges, Ive been forced to fight for my life and experienced many close friends die in horrible ways. And it’s all taken it’s toll. Graffiti is rougher than any extreme sport and being a writer can have some very serious real life consequences. I hope to educate the next generation of graffiti artists and purists via my lived experience, to point new artists in the right direction and end the cycle of violence within the sub culture. I understand that graffiti isn’t the cause for the violence, it’s just the catalyst, the cause is a lack of positive role models and direction. 

I plan on painting, mentoring and facilitating workshops until I physically cannot paint anymore. I hope to inspire others to work hard for what they want in life.

The lifestyle a graffiti writer lives is not just delinquency leading on to addiction or government welfare diverted into the hands of organised crime. The mainstream media like to portray us as the bad guys but I know hundreds of graffiti writers that will stand up for those in the community who need support.

Yes the lifestyle was violent. Yes we fought for our names and our brothers, and yes, many have died for it too. It was a very dangerous scene and we had to use our wits to avoid serious consequences. Those lived experiences allowed us to help others. We learnt unique ways to survive and still carry those skills to this day. Without graffiti we would be the organised criminals diverting welfare, importing drugs, committing serious violent crimes and costing the tax payers millions of dollars each year, instead we spray some colour onto a canvas to heal ourselves and entertain others.

We know ourselves better than those who are too insecure to put themselves in our position, to be judged by the world and it takes a brave soul to do this day in day out. 

Graffiti as an institution saved kids like me who didn’t fit the mould of a regular student, who struggled to find a way of life that suited my personality and experiences of the world.

If you feel lost or alone, pick up a spray can and go meet a graffiti writer anywhere in the world, I guarantee you have got a family.

- Tom Parso still lives and works in inner city Melbourne, painting murals, selling artworks, facilitating workshops for various clients and community programs, he continues to promote Melbourne’s street art culture to the masses and has committed his life to his work.

Instagram @tom_parso