Australian born, Melbourne-based street artist Matt Adnate teamed up with street art collective and creative agency Juddy Roller to paint a high-rise housing estate building in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood featuring the faces of four of its tenants, all in the sprit to reflect the community’s cultural diversity.
About The Mural
The idea for the mural started when the art collective Juddy Roller took the Minister for Planning Richard Wynne on an impromptu street art tour of the area a few years back. Since then, the crew have been working towards bringing this huge public-housing mural to life.
In order to pick the four subjects that would adorn the side of the 20-story Collingwood Housing tower, and as part of community engagement, organizers held a series of workshops, and residents from the precinct got together, keen to have their faces immortalized in spray paint, had their photo snapped down at the community centre.
The four faces chosen for the work capture the area’s spirit of diversity: Ethiopian woman Badria Abdo, who came to Australia 12 years ago as a refugee from Kenya; Indonesian man Yulius Antares Taime who has called the Collingwood flats home for just four months; Melbourne-born six-year-old Arden Watson-Cropley; and five-year-old Australian-Vietnamese girl Ni Na Nguyen.
Known for painting individuals from minority communities, the Internationally renowned street artist Adnate said: “There’s certainly been a sort of stimga around this building over the decades I’ve been here. Putting such a positive spin and turning it into artwork has breathed new life into what was a dull, grey block.” The Collingwood Housing Estate project will be the tallest mural in the Southern Hemisphere that the artist’s ever painted.
About The Artists
Adnate is an artist that execute his portraits in spray paint. He has moved past his roots in Street Art, utilizing the medium to carry his realist style into the fine art realm. Heavily influenced by the chiaroscuro of renaissance painters like Caravaggio, Adnate embraces portraiture like the masters of the XXI Century. Adnate has always held a connection towards indigenous people of their native land, especially with Indigenous Australians. He paints large scale murals in the main cities around Australia and the world, creating a statement of reclaiming the land that was always theirs. He endeavours to capture the stories and emotions of each subject he paints, encouraging the audience to feel through their own experience.
About Juddy Roller
As an award-winning street art network, Juddy Roller is about so much more than just painting walls. Their services cover everything from large-scale mural projects, curatorial assistance, and festival management, to art consultancy and graffiti management (both strategy and implementation).
Juddy Roller is also about the people behind the walls (metaphorically, not literally). Under founder and creative director Shaun Hossack’s expert direction, Juddy Roller has developed into a well-established community of passionate individuals. People who want to revolutionise the way society engages with public spaces. Through art, Juddy Roller permanently changed Australia’s urban landscapes, reflecting the identities of people who walk each city’s streets.
Images by Nicole Reed
Matt Adnate: website | instagram
Buddy Roller: website | facebook |instagram
