Manly Laneway Mural 2019

Manly Laneway Mural 2019

As part of their safer laneways project, the Northern Beaches council needed to make a dark, intimidating passageway safer for the community so instead of installing security cameras they opted for public art. This was a huge project that took 3 months to complete and spanned a 50 metre enclosed laneway that led from a council carpark to Manly Corso.

I saw this as an amazing and unique space that could be transformed to give something back to the community and to be used as an educational piece. My vision was to fill the entire space with Australian native wildlife endemic to the local area of the Northern Beaches and to highlight how damn cool they all are.

Here’s what the laneway looked like before we started painting.

It took many weeks to cover the entire laneway in the first base coat of paint. We worked from 8pm to 3am on week nights to avoid foot traffic and to observe a safe working environment. We were also restricted to using rollers and brushes and no aerosol as the ventilation in the space was poor. Big thanks to Cam from the council who organised a small army of youth to come and help during this stage.

The space really started to come to life once we applied our first base coats.

Once the base coats were down it was time to start on the animals. We spent many weeks filling the space with local native wildlife characters, here are some process shots of the team at work

 

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally finished the mural and are so proud of the finished result.

 

Each character in the tunnel represents a species that exists (or once existed) in Manly and the Northern Beaches. From the Eastern Grey Kangaroos who can be found in Duffys Forest to the Flying Foxes that fly overhead in Balgowlah to the beautiful Eastern Pygmy Possum that once existed near Manly Dam and even the Koala that once inhabited the Avalon/Newport region. All in all you’ll find over 40 wildlife characters hidden throughout the space to find.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the help from Pat Hunter, Cam Wall (and the team of youth who came along and helped), my partner Tash and of course my best mate, mentor and incredible artist himself Ken Chu who came to help me every night.