Patrica Greig: You meet a wall and take it from there

Elliot Stewart and Askew One at the Wonder Walls Festival.

All artists take risks. Elliot Stewart once faced an oncoming train as he painted the inside of a tunnel.

"It was a foolish move," he says. "It was frightening, you can't really do that any more, you can't completely work around these places."

He uses his art to challenge others to take risks too. Stewart tries to give people a polite shove into recognising a life outside the limitations they may have imposed upon themselves.

"But I never purposefully try to rile people up," he says. "I painted something by K Rd - people said it glorified the unemployed, but in no way, shape or form did I try to paint something to get that reaction. Often people don't like things until someone else does."

It's not about slapping something on a surface and waiting for feedback either. He makes sure his pieces invoke elements of their surroundings.

"You meet a wall and you see where things are meant to be. You can't just go off the paper, you have to incorporate the environment so it's impossible to plan."

Stewart grew up with a fondness for comics - "all of them, but not the zombie ones, they're all the same". In between creating pieces for shows, or decorating cities around the world, he writes his own strips, inspired by events from his life. It's a dream job.

He recently returned from Port Adelaide, where he and fellow artist Askew One took part in the Wonder Walls Festival. For a week, their canvas was a nine-storey wall. Their mission was to acknowledge the indigenous Kaurna people, their land and the need to learn from the past. It was a success, and the project could be reimagined in many colonised countries.

During his visit, Stewart was struck by the difference between graffiti writers here and in Australia. "The Australians are proud and militant-like, but the New Zealanders seem quick to step out of the limelight."

It seems odd, given the amount of recent coverage of public art and talk about its value, that many artworks remain hidden under bridges, wasted.

In Auckland, Stewart says, "there are places for league, rugby, skateboarders, but nowhere to paint. No carparks, tunnels - it sucks because every other city that is good and celebrated has graffiti. Cities without graffiti are unhealthy, not creative and not free.

"Buildings and backyards are becoming uglier. It's unlivable. Grey on grey, white on white, levelled yards and straight fences ... I just want to see someone reading on their porch."

To improve the city, Stewart needs to have the freedom to do what he wants to do. "Trust me," he says. And I do.