The Wyndham Cultural Centre has gone from exhibiting art to becoming a piece of art in its own right.
Renowned artist Ash Keating has shown his passion for street art by painting a large-scale mural on the western wall of the centre depicting both the area’s loss of native grasslands and ongoing residential development.
The artist, who also presents workshops and makes contemporary art projects that show in galleries, did his first large-scale mural in 2012 on a concrete factory wall facing the Deer Park bypass.
“It had just been deemed an industrial precinct,” he said. “A lot of the rural land had been turned into industrial land in a short period of time. I had this idea to paint on the facade of that building something representing the surrounding grasslands.”
Keating was approached by Wyndham council to create a similar piece at the Wyndham Cultural Centre and he spent the Queen’s Birthday weekend creating the work through a combination of hosing, spraying and throwing the paint on the wall.
The artist said he loved doing large-scale works along Melbourne’s urban boundaries.
“It’s a very low-down horizon line, which is similar to the way in which you experience the grasslands around Werribee,” he said.
“I wanted to keep it very minimal and true to the reality of the landscape of the area.
“It’s equally as much about questioning the urban growth. Not only is it a poetic question about our growth, but it’s also an alternative way of considering our architecture.”
