A PUBLIC art project on James Street will be completed this week after a five-month hiatus.
Artists Benjamin Higgins and EJ Zyla started painting the empty car park walls behind Ripley Arcade in April and returned this week to make art while the sun shines.
“We finished stage one of the project about five months ago and the plan was always to come back and pick up where we left off after winter,” Mr Higgins explained.
“Cold and rain are not ideal conditions for painting outdoors and it worked out we had a few other projects commissioned in between and a couple down this way around this time.
“It’s still cold here though – I’m from Melbourne, so it doesn’t bother me as much, but EJ is from Queensland, so she really feels the cold.”
Mr Higgins and Ms Zyla are part of the Rhythmicolour Collective, a mural-based arts group highly sought after to create public and private murals.
Artists from the collective are commissioned to manage small and large scale art works across Australia.
“We travel all over the country and even internationally – I was in Japan for a project recently,” Mr Higgins said.
Commissioned for the Ripley Arcade Public Art Project, the artists were inspired by the micro world and the colours of the natural environment in the Blue Lake city.
“Broadly the theme was nature and we have focused on the micro world – this is a macro of a micro nature scene with moths, snails and leaves,” Mr Higgins said.
“There is fluidity to the design and the base colours were inspired by the colours of the natural environment here, especially the Blue Lake.
“The painting is inverted with the darker colours as a base and the details in white so it looks almost like an x-ray image.”
Stage two of the project is expected to be wrapped up this weekend.
