Mural Masterpieces - Ashburton Intermediate School

Location:
144 Cass Street, Ashburton.

Team:
Little Picasso’s Art Extension Group.

Accessible to public:
Yes.

Mural theme:
Literacy, Multi-cultural.

Background to mural creation:
At the Little Picasso’s art extension group they wanted to create a series of murals to beautify the school. These first murals are for the school library.

The first mural was focused on literacy as the theme. They used words to make associations to books in general and then added reading and writing genres and surface features that they had been learning about.

They used the heads to highlight the ideas of communication in various formats – written and oral language, almost like they are having a conversation. They chose to use a series of gears and clogs in the head on the left to further highlight the ideas of the thought processes that occur when using all of these literacy strategies. They put the ABC in the cogs to show how the alphabet can be churned out or used in all the different areas of literacy. The exposed brain also reinforces this idea of thinking by again showing what’s going on inside our heads. The comparison between what at times can be mechanical complex ideas or deeper thinking skills on the left and the organic creative flow on the right.

The second mural theme was inspired by the many cultures within the school. They included flags, flowers and symbolism representing each culture. They relied heavily on the pattern and repetition previously studied in their Pasifika unit, to show the cultural ties that are woven together. They chose to overlap and merge the cultures together to show their diversity and acceptance of each other. They also thought about the culture of the library itself and decided it has a universal context, meaning that it is available and used by everyone for a variety of different activities. A safe environment that is peaceful and forgiving.

They started with a collage of the world made from an old atlas (NZ is intentionally large) centred with all the cultures connecting around it. The composition is designed to be busy with layers to show their many personalities and individuals. They chose bright vibrant colours that are often found in Pasifika art and to make each culture stand out yet by unified within the whole design.