Murals

First published in Column Eight on the 22^nd Sept, 1993 

Before my wife went overseas to visit her family, we spent an evening with some friends. These people had not long before to Canada’s Vancouver Island. Since my wife was also going to be spending some time, they encouraged her to go and visit the town of Chemainus (pop 3500). She did. But more of Chemainus in a moment.

I suppose Dunedin is not unusual as a city these days in having a few murals scattered around. Every city has walls that cry out to stop being so boring. Neither, I guess, is Dunedin unusual in that it gives scant attention to those murals when someone decides the walls no longer serve a ‘useful’ purpose.

Considering the immense amount of fuss that’s been generated regarding the proper location of the Art Gallery, I find it strange that on at least two or three occasions I can think of, perfectly good murals have vanished because of some redevelopment.

Obviously art is only of worth when it’s stuck up in a gallery, at the perfect temperature, with lights somewhat dim, and people walking around in reverential tones. Robust outdoor art has to look after itself, and too bad if someone wants to take the wall down and recycle it.

Until a few years ago there was a delightful mural painted on a house on the corner of Tennyson St. All other buildings had been demolished, but this one hung on. Someone was optimistic enough about its future to paint a mural on it, but finally the house, and the mural, crumbled. I have a photograph of it somewhere, and wonder how many other people recorded it.

In the Dowling St carpark another mural was painted, on the shell of what had once been a picture theatre. This was truncated when some city planner decided the the shell served no purpose, and an open-plan carpark would be more aesthetic. Now we have what might be called the Venus de Milo of murals.

Murals are only to stop vandals spraying graffiti, aren’t they? Murals are things kids do on walls, as class projects, aren’t they? Murals are meant to be temporary, right?

That’s how it seems in Dunedin, but in Chemainus (pop 3500), they think otherwise. Over a period of several years the people of nearly-dead-on-its-feet Chemainus refused to let it become a ghost town. Instead they commissioned artists to paint murals on any walls not otherwise occupied.

There are now 32 murals. These murals have a double function: they are firstly a top tourist attraction, and have given Chemainus a revival in income terms.

Secondly, they’re a panorama of the history of the town, from its earliest Indian occupied days through the time when the sawmill made the place thrive, right on up to the present.

These paintings are representational, for the most part, some having an almost photographic reality about them. They’re full of the faces of earlier town residents, usually taken from old photos, each in a setting that explains their part in the town’s life.

Just imagine if, in Dunedin, the stern characters on the Early Settlers’ Museum walls left their portrait gallery and came out to breathe the open air, to be seen doing the things they did in real life. Or if events out of our history book took on a more visual form.

We’ve got plenty of boring, blank-eyed walls lazing around the city – including the new Archives building. New Zealand has plenty of artists who’d be glad of a commission to paint on a large ‘canvas’ a picture that would be seen by more than just the elite or wealthy.

And the people of Chemainus wouldn’t begrudge us imitating them. Karl Schutz, the man behind the idea, has already been in Australia to help set up a similar scheme there.

Almost the only kind of large-scale murals we now have in the city are advertisements, the sort of thing you can see anywhere in the world.

Let’s go for something different.

 

Lurch, a character from The Addams Family, 
which used to be on the entrance to a flat in View St. 

I’d love to say that this column had some effect on those in authority in Dunedin, but perhaps others were already thinking along the same lines. Suffice to say, Dunedin now has a large ‘collection’ of murals that range from the rough-edged to the superb…a few can be seen here. Already some of those that were existence when I wrote this have gone, but in general the newer ones are outstanding examples of what can be done.

I can no longer remember the mural in Tennyson St, and sadly don’t appear to have the photo that I talk about, though I have a wide range of photos of Dunedin murals taken over a number of years.

Chemainus now has around 53 murals. You can find an earlier post here that has links to some other sites with photos of Dunedin murals. 

Curiously enough it’s only in the last few days (late Sept 2026) that a mural of Ed Sherrin that itself dates back only a few years was ‘vandalised’ after his opening act Macklemore started to preach Pro-Palestine at a Sherrin concert.

Ed Sherrin mural before and after