Some of the most famous street artists in the world are leaving their Australian homes to seek creative freedom overseas.

These artist command tens of thousands of dollars for their artworks, have secured lucrative residencies and have been commissioned for murals everywhere from Argentina to Indonesia, the United States and Hong Kong.

But in their hometown the street artists' work is hard to find, limited to smaller walls down hidden passageways or behind closed doors in private properties.

Fintan Magee grew up in the Brisbane suburb of West End and is best known for his 'Storm Water' artworks, a critically acclaimed series of murals inspired by Brisbane's 2011 floods.

A number of local artists including Fintan Magee and Guido Van Helten are making it big interstate and overseas, both have recently painted large scale murals throughout Europe.

While his paintings including Queenslander houses and pineapples are a common sight in Sydney and Melbourne, Fintan's Brisbane inspired works are nowhere to be seen in the river city.

He says the reason why his larger than life works are a rare sight in his hometown is because the city council has painted over a number of his commissioned murals.

"It's quite disheartening yeah, when you get a good response from the community and the council go and paint over it anyway, regardless of that community response," he said.

"I had a work removed from a wall inside the cultural centre in South Bank that got a really good response... and the work only lasted I think five days, I wasn't in the city when it was removed, and it was done without any sort of community consultation."

Street art vs. street crime

City Councillor Krista Adams says while there have been incidents of council painting over murals in the past; they try to draw a line between art and crime.

"Street art and graffiti are very different on one very clear point, graffiti is illegal and it's a crime whereas street art is something that even council does commission," she said.

"We've been working with a lot of street artists over the last 12 months and doing murals on a lot of our open spaces that we tend to get a lot of graffiti on."

Commissioning creativity

Guido van Helten, who grew up in Brisbane but is currently painting his signature three storey high artworks in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, says councils painting over artworks may not be the only factor holding back the Queensland street art scene.

"In Iceland I've come here into a community where there's not that much street art... but I've had a discussion with them and it's always you do what you want you are the artist, we like what you do and just do it," he said.

"But in Brisbane it's more like 'we want you to do this but can you this, I'm not sure what you usually do will work here,' it's more of a control thing about what's being painted."

Guido van Helten and Fintan Magee both say they have no plans to return to Brisbane until they can secure locations for their artworks that the public can see and that they have creative control over.