Beyond the Wall: Bold, Raw Energy of Graffiti Jams Captivate Urban Public Art Goers

by Laura Goldstein

Photos: Colin Smith Takes Pics

 

A gigantic spray-painted honeybee appears to loom over a crowd of avid onlookers. On another wall, Japanese anime super heroine, Sailor Moon and her cosmic cat Luna light up a starry sky. Gantry cranes and boom lifts rise like prehistoric dinosaurs and carry artists up towering heights along a corridor of Canada’s longest graffiti wall. Formerly the E&N Rail Trail in Victoria, BC, it extends adjacent to 7,500-square-feet of exterior concrete walls of industrial warehouses—the ideal graffiti canvas. Known as the Trackside Art Gallery, over 60 artists from across the country have come together to showcase their graffiti art at the annual Trackside Paint Jam.

 

As part of the By Design: A Journey Through Arts and Culture Talk Series, the co-producers of Trackside Paint Jam, Laura-Beth McDonald and Jason Colville, present Beyond the Wall: Curating Graffiti Jams in Public Spaces at the Royal BC Museum, Thursday, May 29.

 

With its roots in political and social struggles, “the origins of graffiti come mostly from New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s and it was really a way for African American and racialized kids to express themselves in an art world that was inaccessible to them,” explains Laura-Beth. “Train painting and tagging, for example, have a long history in the culture and still do.” 

 

As early as 1967, street artist Darryl McCray started writing his tag name ‘Cornbread’ on walls all over Philadelphia, Penn. Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and more recently, Banksy, all began their artistic careers with graffiti then eventually transitioned to murals and paintings now worth millions of dollars. 

 

Beyond the Wall parallels the Royal BC Museum’s newest exhibition, Beyond the Beat: Music of Resistance and Change. The travelling exhibition from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Man., runs May 30 to January 5, 2026.

 

Currently overseeing the travelling exhibitions program at the Royal BC Museum, Laura-Beth is an artist in her own right. With fellow artist Juan Ramirez, they explore human nature, technology and accessibility through installation art. Jason Colville founded Trackside Paint Jam in Esquimalt, BC, in 2020, and Laura-Beth's work with the Trackside Gallery is a curatorial one. Bringing artists together outside and enticing the public to attend was the perfect creative antidote after isolation due to COVID. 

 

Like most graffiti, the spray-can created art at the Trackside Paint Jam is ephemeral; the walls are painted over in black each year so that artists can express their ideas anew on a blank canvas.

 

I asked Laura-Beth how one distinguishes between creating graffiti art and destruction of public property:

 

“Some people will see it as defamation of public property, but I think there is nuance—a balancing act between allowing creative expression in the public realm vs policing people and freedom of expression,” she says. “I think it’s important to bring the public together at Trackside Paint Jam to dispel some of the assumptions, stereotypes and prejudice that some people have around this art form. We wanted the community to know that this is a very legitimate form of expression and that many of the talented graffiti artists go on to professional careers as painters and muralists,” she adds. “I think we do some good work in challenging public perception around the art form.”

 

Laura-Beth emphasizes that obtaining permissions was a very necessary and time-consuming process as all the walls of warehouses facing the Hereward Road and Lampson Street corridor are on private property. 

 

“We had to get permissions from not only private building owners but the Capital Regional District, the caretakers of the E&N land and the City of Victoria and it wasn’t easy, and, we have to renew every year!” she laughs. In addition the team undertook fundraising from not-for-profit BC Heathy Communities who helped with updating the infrastructure upgrades of the Trackside Gallery corridor and the BC Arts Council. “We are always looking for funding,” she confides.

 

“You know it’s a great way for artists to showcase their talents," says Laura-Beth, “because several companies like Driftwood Brewery and La Belle Patate restaurant have actually hired some of the Trackside Gallery graffiti artists to create murals inside and outside their buildings.”