That dichotomy \u2013 disdain mixed with reluctant respect for the pure chutzpah of it \u2013 was on display even in the courtroom as Judge Kirsten Lummis turned her attention to Truell on Monday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve watched your videos, I\u2019ve seen your artwork and my son is now obsessed with pointing it out all over the country,\u201d the judge started off in a not-unfriendly tone, mentioning a \u201cPork\u201d tag she had recently noticed on a water tower in Huntly. <\/p>\n
The judge quickly clarified that she hadn\u2019t been watching videos of him as a fan but because she had overseen an earlier pre-trial hearing in which authorities wanted to use \u201cFull Time Pork\u201d – a 16-minute documentary on YouTube following his blurred-face exploits in Wellington – as evidence against him. <\/p>\n
\u201cLove him or hate him, there is no denying that Pork is everywhere,\u201d reads the tagline for the video, which has been watched over 100,000 times in the three years since it was posted. <\/p>\n
What Judge Lummis saw in that video, she said, was someone who appeared very much out of it due to drugs but who also showed great artistic potential if steered into a productive outlet. <\/p>\n
Truell, who now lives in a sleepout at his mother\u2019s Mangere Bridge home, agreed. He\u2019s ready to go legit, and to start giving back to the community, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAddiction has been one of the most challenging things I\u2019ve ever been through in my life,\u201d he admitted to the judge, adding that he\u2019s now the \u201cbest I\u2019ve been mentally\u201d thanks in part to drug rehab efforts while awaiting trial. <\/p>\n
Karl Truell, the prolific tagger better known as “Pork”, stands outside Auckland District Court with supporter Annabel Young after telling a judge his graffiti days are behind him. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to continue in the right direction,\u201d he added, acknowledging that if he continues to combine risky stunts and substance abuse, it\u2019s likely to end with his death. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had my fun, and I\u2019ve overdone it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some of those in the transtasman graffiti and skating scenes – and even a Green Party MP – have no doubt known of Truell\u2019s double life for some time, this marks the first time his identity has been revealed to the wider public. <\/p>\n
\u2018Melbourne\u2018s worst\u2019<\/p>\n
Truell\u2019s flirtation with celebrity started at a young age, with a skateboard rather than a spraypaint can. <\/p>\n
He was part of a crew in Sydney in the late-2000s that had transcended recreational skating and was by that point featured on DVDs collected by skateboarding enthusiasts. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The baby-faced teen punished his body as he perfected rail slides and risky jumps over massive stair sets. One video also showed him slyly vandalising a police officer\u2019s car with stickers as he was issued a citation. <\/p>\n
But by 2016, the emphasis had started to change. Despite landing two magazine covers<\/a> that year for his skateboarding, Truell\u2019s alter ego was on the rise. <\/p>\n Melbourne newspaper The Age identified \u201cPork\u201d as among the city\u2019s worst recidivist offenders \u201cwhose tags are verging on household names<\/a>\u201d – a cause of widespread frustration even in a city known for its embrace of street art. His work could be seen all over the state of Victoria, the newspaper reported. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n His tags at that time often appeared side-by-side with another Melbourne graffiti artist who went by Nost, leading some to speculate they were the same person. Nost, however, was arrested in 2017 and identified as Shane Newman, an unemployed bricklayer and methamphetamine addict. <\/p>\n Newman was sentenced to prison for vandalism and robbery charges, while the Pork tag continued to spread. <\/p>\n To a lesser extent, Truell also targeted Sydney, causing major damage in 2016 to the city\u2019s historic Lansdowne Hotel building, a nightlife hotspot that had recently gone vacant. <\/p>\n \u201cSome times I get a lil carryed away [sic],\u201d he wrote on social media alongside a photo that showed every floor and numerous windows of the building covered in his tags. <\/p>\n Social media posts show he travelled to Europe in late 2019, leaving his tags in Paris, before appearing to resettle in New Zealand. By 2022, after the Covid-19 pandemic saw a big uptick in graffiti<\/a>, his work had garnered the attention of New Zealand police. <\/p>\n That year, Wellington City Council characterised the newly released documentary<\/a> about him as \u201cnauseating\u201d. A spokesperson estimated it would cost \u201cseven figures\u201d to clean up after the vandal. <\/p>\n Pork, with his face and voice obscured, told the filmmaker he was in his \u201cprime\u201d and had no intention to stop. Auckland authorities would soon learn, to their disdain, that the comment wasn\u2019t empty bravado. <\/p>\n Just under 1000 reports of \u201cPork\u201d or \u201cPorker\u201d graffiti were reported in Auckland through 2022 and the first couple of months of 2023, an Auckland Council spokesperson told RNZ, after outrage was sparked over the tag defacing the roof of a Presbyterian church<\/a> on Auckland Central\u2019s Karangahape Rd. <\/p>\n He was so prolific that the spokesman speculated multiple taggers across the country were using the pseudonym. But the documentarian behind \u201cFull Time Pork\u201d insisted to RNZ it was all one man who treated graffiti as a full-time job. <\/p>\n \u201c…His whole life is centred around doing this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Although Truell\u2019s public skateboarding profile had decreased with age, he landed one more magazine cover in November 2024. Manual Magazine documented a failed but nonetheless hair-raising stunt on a busy section of the Auckland motorway system known as Spaghetti Junction. <\/p>\n \u201cSeeing him up there and the scale of how small he was compared to the obstacle made me instantly feel incredibly scared for him and wonder if perhaps we\u2019d taken things a little too far,\u201d wrote photographer Dave Chami, acknowledging that a fall from the pillar Truell balanced atop with his skateboard would mean \u201ccertain death\u201d. <\/p>\n Video of the aftermath showed Truell splayed across a lane of the motorway around 1am, unable to get up after making the jump but landing hard on the pavement. Friends pulled him into a waiting car. <\/p>\n Spaghetti Junction blues<\/p>\n By the time the stunt was published, along with a run of posters, Truell\u2019s legal troubles were already well underway thanks to another stunt on the same Spaghetti Junction stretch. <\/p>\n Police were able to track him down and charge him in June 2024 with damaging a motorway overbridge, punishable by up to seven years\u2019 imprisonment, after investigating a video<\/a> that had been posted on his Instagram account a year earlier of the structure being defaced. <\/p>\n The charge was later reduced to wilful damage, punishable by three months\u2019 imprisonment. Truell eventually pleaded guilty. In court documents, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi said it cost $3500 to remove the tagging. <\/p>\n He was nabbed again on New Year\u2019s Eve 2024 after scrawling \u201cPorker\u201d on a phone booth in Parnell, then again in February last year after switching price tags on a water blaster at a Bunnings store, paying $200 for the $2300 item. <\/p>\n The fraud charge that resulted was the only one for which Truell still faced a possible seven-year sentence as he appeared for sentencing this week. <\/p>\n \u2018Keep my head down\u2019<\/p>\n Defence lawyer Ayushi Kala asked for a non-custodial sentence, seeking reductions for Truell\u2019s admission of guilt, his addiction and rehabilitation efforts and for his volunteer work. Police prosecutor Siobhan Sharkey did not oppose. <\/p>\n The judge was handed a letter of support from Green MP Tamatha Paul, who commissioned Truell to add his tag to an already vandalised campaign poster that now hangs in her office<\/a>. <\/p>\n The judge said she was uneasy with the letter, written on Parliament letterhead, and disregarded it. <\/p>\n The defence also asked for mercy regarding a new graffiti charge from one week earlier, in which Truell was caught red-handed spraypainting a building on Auckland Central\u2019s Hobson St. The stress of the upcoming hearing, paired with a family member\u2019s recent self-harm incident, had caused him to revert to old habits, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n Truell, addressing the judge directly, said he had travelled to the city centre for an appointment that day to get fitted for dentures and ran into some old associates<\/p>\n \u201cI can honestly tell you, Your Honour, that I hadn\u2019t been painting for a very long time,\u201d he said. \u201cI actually have been good…<\/p>\n \u201cI should have gone straight home. I was in the cells for the night, and that was a big enough wake-up call for me to be: \u2018What are you doing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Since engaging in rehab and with the criminal charges hanging over his head, Truell told the judge he has tried to put his life right. He\u2019s now involved with helping Papatoetoe High School art students paint a mural and he has been in talks with the K Road Business Association about a possible exhibition. <\/p>\n \u201cWhich is awesome because I\u2019m learning new things,\u201d he said, adding that he continues to sell skateboard decks that he has painted. <\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s good, because you have talent, so let\u2019s use it positively,\u201d Judge Lummis replied to the update. <\/p>\n She acknowledged his restraint in recent months. <\/p>\n \u201cThere certainly doesn\u2019t seem to be fresh stuff … from what I\u2019ve observed,\u201d she said of his tag, adding that it appears he has \u201cbeen trying really hard to change\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cLike many people in your situation, trying to extricate themselves from addiction, it\u2019s not a linear journey,\u201d she said. \u201cWe expect people to have bumps in the road, and this is what I\u2019m seeing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is really cool to see is you are using your artistic abilities to try to do some positive stuff, and that is fantastic… I can see some of the potential in the artworks that I have seen. It\u2019s about painting in appropriate places.\u201d<\/p>\n She ordered 18 months of intensive supervision and 100 hours of community work, along with $2000 in reparations to be paid to NZTA and Bunnings. She also ordered Truell to return to court in June for monitoring, \u201cto ensure there are no slip-ups\u201d as he continues his rehabilitation. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll keep my head down,\u201d Truell promised. <\/p>\n \u2018More to life than scribbling on walls\u2019<\/p>\n Later, chatting with a Herald reporter on the courthouse steps, Truell seemed unsure at times whether it would better serve him to speak earnestly or to revert to the larrakin persona he\u2019d cultivated since his skateboard video days. <\/p>\n He opened his collared shirt worn in court to reveal his latest T-shirt design, reading \u201cPork\u201d with the tagline \u201cunofficially sponsored by Bunnings Warehouse\u201d. In addition to the fraud charge he was sentenced for that day, the 2022 documentary shows him stuffing spraypaint cans down his pants inside one of the retail outlets. <\/p>\n Truell declined to comment on the documentary, saying there\u2019s no proof it was him. It\u2019s not an argument he took up in court, however, when the judge made it clear there is no doubt that it is him in the video. <\/p>\n He also insisted outside court that at least two others have adopted his tag over the years \u2013 a direct contradiction to what his unofficial spokesman, documentarian and fellow street artist Cameron Hunt<\/a>, had said three years earlier when asked a similar question by the media. <\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t take all the credit for the word \u2018Pork\u2019 but yes, I am a contributor to it,\u201d he said, adding that the others haven\u2019t been \u201cimitators\u201d so much as a \u201ccult following\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still lots of tags around, but they weren\u2019t done by me,\u201d he said, insisting that \u2013 aside from the previous week\u2019s relapse \u2013 he hasn\u2019t been illegally painting for several years while on bail in both Auckland and Wellington. <\/p>\n His once regularly updated Instagram page hasn\u2019t had a new post since June 2023, with a final video of him dangling far above State Highway 1 as he painted the side of the Pukeko Bridge north of Auckland. <\/p>\n He\u2019s responsible only for six or seven tags, he initially joked with a straight face when asked by the Herald how many of the thousands should be attributed to him. <\/p>\n \u201cNo, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he added a few ticks later. \u201cI haven\u2019t kept count.\u201d<\/p>\n Coincidentally, Truell\u2019s hearing came within days of UK street artist Banksy\u2019s identity being revealed<\/a> after over 30 years of straddling illegal graffiti and the art world. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of graffiti writers hate him, but I think he\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Truell said, recalling with pride how another media outlet once referred to him as \u201cWellington\u2019s would-be Banksy\u201d and contemplating his own thrust forward into the spotlight. <\/p>\n \u201cI still wouldn\u2019t want to put my name forward, but I\u2019m just going in another direction,\u201d he said. \u201cThe tag \u2018Pork\u2019 does now have a bit of a following, and so I\u2019m, yeah, use it in a positive light form, and if I can make something from it, why not. Seize the opportunity if it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if he was serious about what he had said in court about wanting to go legit, Truell quickly shot back: \u201cNo comment.\u201d But then he thought better of the flippant response and tried again, his voice taking on a more genuine tone.<\/p>\n \u201cNah, yeah, I don\u2019t want to be like at the age I am, f***ing still in and out of court for scribbling on walls,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s more to life than that.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely not worth it. I should have stopped 10 years ago, but now I\u2019ll make the most of the work I have done.\u201d<\/p>\nSydney’s historic Lansdowne Hotel building was targeted by graffiti tagger Pork in 2016. Photos \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Firefighters battle a blaze in October 2023 at an abandoned historic building in Central Wellington covered in graffiti from prolific tagger “Pork”. Photo \/ George Heard<\/p>\n
Green MP for Wellington Central Tamatha Paul hangs a campaign sign in her office that she commissioned Karl Truell to tag. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Mangere Bridge resident Karl William Forest Truell, the prolific graffiti tagger better known as “Pork”, standing in the dock during his sentencing at Auckland District Court. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Judge Kirsten Lummis. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
A still from the 2022 short documentary Full Time Pork, available on YouTube, shows the graffiti artist targeting a wall in Wellington in broad daylight. Photo \/ Full Time Pork \/ Cameron Hunt<\/p>\n
Aucklander Karl Truell, otherwise known as the prolific transtasman tagger “Pork”, says he now wants to go legit. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
In the 2022 short documentary Full Time Pork, the graffiti artist is shown stuffing cans of spraypaint under his clothes while at a Bunnings Warehouse. Photo \/ Full Time Pork \/ Cameron Hunt<\/p>\n
The Pukeko Bridge is a distinctive landmark as commuters leave Auckland for Northland. Photo \/ Kenny Rodger<\/p>\n
A Pork tag dominates the side of a building along Auckland Central’s busy Queen St, near Aotea Centre. Photo \/ Craig Kapitan<\/p>\n
Karl Truell has been sentenced in Auckland District Court for a small percentage of the “Pork” graffiti tags seen across the city over the past five years. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n