But the NAS Gallery at Sydney's National Art School invited half a dozen graffiti artists inside to do just that for a show about spray paint subculture and its links to contemporary art.
Graf writers SPICE, MACH, BAGL, LAZY and BREAK have spent days painting large-scale pieces, with air scrubbing machines installed to filter the fumes away.
Once they have subsided, spray-painted works by some of Australia's big names in 20th century art, including Sidney Nolan and Howard Arkley, will be installed too.
Public graffiti without permission is, of course, against the law, while artworks by the likes of Arkley sell for millions of dollars.
Earlier in 2025, two of his spray-painted visions of suburbia (Contemporary Units, 1988 and Neapolitan Delight, 1993) set a shared record for works of art sold at auction this year, each selling for $2.5 million.
The show doesn't offer any easy answers as to how legitimate spray art should be compared to more subversive graffiti but what's clear is that each has influenced the other over decades.
"I was just interested in trying to trace that within Australia painting, to see the crossover between the two worlds, how spray carries across from the graf world into into the painting world," said curator and artist Fiona Lowry.
She began exploring the intersections between high art and spray paint when her 14-year-old son became interested in graffiti, and Lowry realised it was much more than just illegible scrawl.
She also watched a video of Sydney graffiti artist Taven asking staff at the Art Gallery of NSW for directions to the (nonexistent) graffiti section - before stepping outside to see dozens of his pieces on show in public.
While Arkley was well known for his airbrushed artworks, there are some unexpected inclusions in the show: Sidney Nolan's late period working with the medium will come as a surprise to many, although he was a key influence for Arkley.
"This is going to be quite radical for many viewers because it really does break with all our preconceptions of what Nolan was," Lowry said.
Inspired by street art, Nolan painted with spray cans while living in the UK in the 1980s and the shelves of his last studio at The Rodd in Herefordshire were lined with cans of various colours.
Work from more than 35 Australian artists will be on display at the exhibition, including Adam Cullen, Dale Frank, Shaun Gladwell, Ben Quilty, Mikala Dwyer and Joan Ross.
From Australia's 2026 Venice Biennale representative Khaled Sabsabi, there are also early works that connect to his time as a hip-hop artist.
Callum Morton's Motormouth 2002 brings the natural home of graffiti into the gallery, with an installation of a miniaturised highway overpass.Â
There's also the work of contemporary artists who started out in the world of graffiti, such as Ben Aitken, Luke Kennedy, Reko Rennie and Bridget Stehli.
The exhibition marks the 20th anniversary of NAS Gallery.
SEARCHERS: Graffiti and Contemporary Art at the NAS Gallery, National Art School from January 11 until April 17 as part of the Sydney Festival.
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