The ‘byou’ Youth Development Team at the City of Ballarat has partnered with local artist Stuart Walsh to produce a stunning mural at the rear of a Ballarat business in Field Street.
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Run over six days, a team of young people aged 12-25 learned the skills of street art and a bit about art history to paint their nine-metre wide work.
Mr Walsh is a multidisciplinary artist whose background includes comics and street art. He has created murals across Melbourne and has been involved in various community arts projects in Mildura.
He said the crew took a little training to get started, but then they seemed to understand the process intuitively.
“The first week we taught them a bit about abstract impressionism, about the formal uses for aerosol art and street art-based practices, so wheatpasting*, stencilling… we’re doing a bit of rolling now, and a tiny bit of freehand,” said Mr Walsh.
“We’re painting in a vaguely impressionistic style – we’ve cut a whole heap of stencils and the kids have cut a whole heap of stencils and we’re spraying them with a limited palette. So we’ve done a cool tonal and a warm tonal set of colours.
“The image is kind of a mix: she’s a bit Greek, a bit Indian, a bit contemporary Gothic. She’s kind of a pachamama, earth-goddess character who’s come out in the city with technology and these little boys at her side are going to have their iPads.”
Pin Pasilan is own of the team working on designing and executing the new mural, and he’s proud of his work.
“I’ve designed the two boys with the iPads next to the goddess,” says Pin.
“That was my idea. I did some of the stencil work, some of the stars. I cut the stencils.”
Pin Pasilan said he learned his art skills from his father, who is an abstract painter.
The Street Art project is an initiative of the Unique Message Maker (UMM) program funded by the Victorian Government Engage! Program through the byou Youth Development Team at the City of Ballarat.
The aim of UMM is to enable young people to demonstrate ideas, thoughts and messages that are important to them through a range of mediums.
Young people are given the opportunity and tools to develop entrepreneurial skill, connections and knowledge with the potential to build campaigns based on passion and fact, and are supported by networking industry and sector professionals.
*Wheatpasting is when you print out a low quality photocopy and you paste it using billposting paint, according to Mr Walsh.
