Katie ‘Kaff-eine‘ (born 1972) from Melbourne is a female street artist and former lawyer, horse-riding instructor and tree-lopper. Kaff-eine began mostly with black and white paste-ups back in 2009 and now spreads her free hand stories in colour painting with aerosols and acrylics. Her depictions are described as naive in style, often portraying humans with animal extensions and deer hunter humans.

Kaff-eine works mostly solo and her work is often found around the inner Melbourne suburbs of Brunswick, Collingwood, Richmond and Prahran. Her work is also located around the lanes, alleys, streets, abandons and railways of Melbourne, interstate and overseas; including places such as Berlin, Manila and within the United States.

• Kaff-eine would keep a couple of spray cans with her at all times and if she saw a wall she liked whilst walking home from work, she would stop and paint, often wearing her full corporate clothes. She figured it would be safe to do so, as the police would probably not be looking for a public servant, graffiting walls.
• Asked why she calls herself ‘Kaff-eine’ she responded “I like coffee, I like caffeine, it keeps me going, especially when I used to paint at night until 4.00 a.m. and get up three hours later to work as a public servant.”

Kaff-eine has illustrated two children’s books ‘Vera’ and ‘The Promise’ and worked on the Berry Street Children’s book ‘Heartcore’.

• Kaff-eine has quit her full-time job and turned to street art full-time.
• She met and painted with Israeli street artists Herakut and did a one-day round trip with them around Victoria, before they went back to Israel.

For further information visit her Website: Facebook Page: or Instagram account.

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