Looking to build better places, increase a sense of community and inject some colour and culture at Sanctuary Point Skate Park, ‘The Point’ project continues to take shape behind the scenes in Sanctuary Point. Verb Syndicate, in partnership with Shoalhaven City Council and Firefly Bay and Basin, have identified a skate and surf culture focused street artist, to take on the job of designing and delivering the street art mural on a section of the Skate Park. “We are excited that the artist has been selected for this project, which formed from the community identifying a need to make improvements to the Skate Park; this was the driving force behind the establishment of this project”, said Natasha Busbridge, from Firefly Bay and Basin.
Professional Street Artist, MUCHOS, hailing from South Australia, brings a unique perspective to his designs, and looks forward to incorporating the insights from local young people and Aboriginal Elders into his work. Chosen for his links to traditional forms of street imagery, MUCHOS cut his teeth amongst the burgeoning street art scene that was emerging in Australia during the mid-2000s.
With varying design experience across illustration to product design, his work has become highly sort after, having collaborated with brands such as Nike, The Critical Slide Society, Only NY and more. His work straddles the line between youth and street culture, while remaining digestible and enjoyed by people of all ages, there is a certain humorous irony to his work, even when trying to capture the tone of voice of consultation projects.
Several key themes have been identified from the consultation of over 100 young people in the Bay and Basin in engagement activities driven by the St. George’s Basin based team, Firefly. We asked young people to tell us about the people, places, and things they love, their favourite things to do in the area, must-sees and -dos for young people and what they would like to see in a mural.
The main emerging themes to underpin the mural design were skate park/culture, bold and bright colours, links to local Aboriginal culture and art, youth focused activities such as skating, drawing on inspiration from nature and native animals, with links to aspirations to keep the space safe and clean.
The next steps using these insights are the design of three mural concepts that will be shared with young community members to choose a final design. The public art piece will then be applied to the Sanctuary Point Skate Park in the second half of 2023.
If you would like to see MUCHOS’ work, check out his Instagram @1800muchos.
