The renovation of Wellington's Glover Park begins with the establishment of the city's newest outdoor art gallery. Beginning this week, 17 major new murals will take their place along the construction site hoarding. The bold new creative designs, each on 1.8m x 4.8m plywood, will surround the Ghuznee and Garrett Street frontages. The first murals go up later this week.
The renovation of Wellington's Glover Park begins with the establishment of the city's newest outdoor art gallery. Beginning this week, 17 major new murals will take their place along the construction site hoarding. The bold new creative designs, each on 1.8m x 4.8m plywood, will surround the Ghuznee and Garrett Street frontages. The first murals go up later this week.

"These are all original works of art, and mural styles range from abstract to figurative to boldly graphical," said Eric Holowacz, Arts Programmes Manager for Wellington City Council. "They will bring art to the street, engage pedestrians, and depict different approaches to visual communication."

City Council Urban Designer Peter Kundycki, overseeing the Glover Park redesign, worked with staff at Wellington's new Arts Centre to invite local painters to submit designs.

"We were hoping for a range of ideas and designs, and were overwhelmed by the quality and power of what came back."

17 artists were commissioned in May, and have been working since to complete their designs on large-scale plywood panels. Once in place at Glover Park, they will surround the construction site and offer visitors a creative environment to inspect and ponder.

Illustrator and conceptual artist Bruce Mahalski, who works from a studio at the new Arts Centre, designed an underwater scene featuring his trademark marine life illustrations of fish, sharks, and other creatures. Mahalski's more provocative work, an exhibition of manipulated toy guns, goes on view at Wellington's Mary Newton Gallery in September.

Naomi Clements, a painter originally from Thames and now based at the new Arts Centre, designed one of the more graphical murals for Glover Park. Her new work contains overlapping street signs, maps, and visual references to urban life in Wellington.

"It's based on things from the city and images that surrounded me when I moved here," she explains.

Other local artists contributing to the Glover Park murals include Shay Lauder, Lynn Baird, Michael Hawkins, Jeanne McAskill, Jo Thapa, and ten others.

Kundycki is pleased with the wealth of creative talent that have brought their visual ideas to the construction hoarding, noting that this may be the largest number of simultaneously commissioned murals ever.

"At the new Arts Centre, and in studios all over the city, creative people have been hard at work painting their murals," said Kundycki. "It will be great when they hit the street and provide Wellington with an open air contemporary art gallery accessible to everyone."

Installation of the murals will begin on-site on Thursday 11 August. Work on the Glover Park redevelopment is expected to be completed early in the New Year, and the murals will remain on view until the end of construction.