- A warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, this story below contains the name a deceased person.
A MAN'S life and ambitions appear to be flying away from him but he reaches out to get help for his gambling addiction in Josh Muir's Many ways to find help.
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The legacy of Ballarat man Joel Coatsworth will be in sharing this with Ballarat in part of a larger collection of the late Yorta Yorta and Gunditjmara man's work.
Many ways to find help was initially designed for Child and Family Services for its 2015-16 gamblers' help campaign. When Cafs decided not to proceed with the commission, Mr Coatsworth decided to buy the mural directly from the artist.
Mr Coatsworth was Cafs' marketing coordinator at the time. He died last year, aged 37, in a car accident and his executor Ron Egeberg suggested donating the artwork to continue the story of hope in the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
The piece is set to be included in a retrospective of Muir's work to be hosted by Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne next year.
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Art Gallery of Ballarat director Louise Tegart said the Gallery was grateful to the Coatsworth family, despite the tragic circumstances.
"Josh Muir was a very exciting young artist whose work we are proud to have in the collection," Ms Tegart said. "He worked in a vibrant, street-art style, and his works are very distinctive, very bold and contemporary.
"The other works of his which we hold in our collection explore aspects of his identity as a young Indigenous man, but in this work he has addressed a problem which affects many people in our community and which he felt a strong connection to."
Muir, who died earlier this year aged 30, chose to depict himself in his trademark baseball cap in the Many ways to find help narrative. He said at the time this was to both set and example and to not offend anyone.
Muir was reported as having a personal connection to the piece having experienced gambling issues. His aim was to offer inspiration and hope, recognising gambling was a growing concern among young people.
Art was a "powerful tool" for Muir, who told The Courier in 2017 art offered a way for him to express his voice and share positive messages.
Muir's passionate and bold works attracted national and international attention in showings such as White Night. Prior to his death, Muir was the featured artist in an exhibition in Dubai attracting more than one million visitors on site and a further 30 million viewers online.
Mr Coatsworth, who grew up in Ballarat, started work with the City of Ballarat as coordinator of The Eureka Centre, then the city's arts and culture unit.
He left Ballarat to run the tourism department in Oamaru, New Zealand, before returning to Australia as manager for the Melbourne Cup interpretive centre at Flemington Racecourse. In a move home to Ballarat, Mr Coatsworth joined Cafs.
Mr Coatsworth's mother Faye Hinton presented the mural to Art Gallery of Ballarat.
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