Big shout out to my beautiful @Southseaspray whanau for once again having me down in the Deep South, this time in Winton. What an honour it (always) is to be able to leave my mark for a very special little community who now suddenly have 13 new murals that have sprung up over the course of the last week. This is always such a fun week on my personal art calendar as I get to hang with like minds and watch such epic talent unfold around me.
Shout out to Deow, Pauline, Trudy, Imme, Cherry Dog and Margie for everything that you do and continue to do.
I was asked recently in an interview what the significance of this mural was for Winton, and my answer was this. For the last three SSS festivals, I had delved deep into community history and geography to unearth conceptual narratives to inform my murals, but with this one my focus was on how hard I could push myself technically, while aiming to create something vibrant and unexpected for the community. Although both the Kākāriki bird and the Kōtukutuku botanicals that feature heavily throughout the artwork are natives of Aotearoa, my focus was on bringing an exotic twist to an otherwise quiet country town.
I enjoyed the challenge of this production and it’s incorporation of technology in the form of laser cutting (38 tiles for the bird), using the platform Midjourney to bot my bird references (yes that’s right, the bird’s don’t actually exist), and utilising the app Photo Layers to overlay my squiggle grid and draw from, while on site. All geeky shiz that artists out there could all appreciate!!!
I was also lucky enough to hustle a crew from Wanaka who also documented the mural from start to finish, so special shout out to bunker_street_film_co, cannot wait to see what content we have created!!
Until next time South Sea Spray
Xxxx
FLOXY