Photos: Ryan Eckersley
Mornington Peninsula Shire receives about 25 reports a week of graffiti tagging on both Shire and private property. The Shire came up with a creative solution to this issue that benefits artists and the wider community.
In May last year, the Shire put a call out for expressions of interest from qualified visual artists or art collectives to create a public artwork as part of a graffiti prevention mural project. Artists from across Australia were invited to submit concepts for two locations in Rosebud, two in Mornington and one in Somerville. Due to COVID lockdowns, the project was postponed, so the murals only became a reality late last year.
Rye-based artist Tyson Savanah worked hard on his submission, creating three concepts for each site, making a total of 15 concepts. His effort paid off with one of his concepts being selected by the Shire’s arts and culture advisory panel for the bus stop outside Rosebud library. There were 29 applicants for this site. The brief called for a “significant and unique graphic design that links to the natural environment”.
In addressing the brief, Tyson says: “First thing I knew not to do was not have any books in it. I thought that might be something lots of people would do because it’s outside the library. I decided to play to my strengths and make street art-based characters. With that in mind I decided to look around at what I saw a lot on the Peninsula. Living near the wetlands I always saw swamp wallabies, kookaburras, foxes, and frogs. I grabbed all those characters and converted them into people who might take the bus.”
Tyson was later unexpectedly commissioned to paint a second mural, in Main St, Mornington. The ‘bonus’ win came about after it was discovered the artist originally commissioned for the site painted a work that was nearly identical to a mural by a European artist. The brief for this site was “an interesting, eye-catching, inspiring anamorphic feature mural that engages with the public that is colourful, vibrant, considers artistic wayfinding, that identifies and connects the civic and retail spaces”.
Tyson says the inspiration for this one was very site-specific. “When I saw the space had a box and a tree, I really wanted to incorporate them. In my mind I saw the box as a treasure chest and thought this has to be beneath a pier and something needs to be guarding it.” Tyson decided blue devil fish would guard the chest “because of its grumpy down-turned mouth. And in the diving world the holy grail of underwater photography is to find one, so I wanted to showcase the fish”.
Arts and culture advisory panel member and Red Hill Ward councillor David Gill says: “The creation of murals at local graffiti hot spots generates a positive impact on the local community and economy as well as giving artists more opportunities to contribute in meaningful ways through telling important stories.”
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