The City of Gold Coast’s Water and Waste (WW) Directorate selected Tamika Grant-Iramu to install an engaging mural artwork on the Water Pump Station and substation located at Heathwood Drive, Upper Coomera as part of the established ‘Water Walls’ urban art project.
First commissioned in 2017, Water Walls forms part of the Gold Coast Water Strategy 2019-2024 and focuses on transforming Water and Waste infrastructure into works of art while targeting graffiti hotspots to discourage vandalism.
This project plays an important role in providing local emerging artists with a platform to showcase their work while improving the amenity of the city.
Over the years, the Water Walls urban artists have transformed utilitarian infrastructure into original art pieces. Their designs reflect the unique character of the Gold Coast and its people. Using a range of mediums that reflect the area around it, each telling a different story.
Water Walls has reduced the recurring cost of graffiti removal on Gold Coast City’s assets and has received positive feedback from members of the community on artworks completed in the past.
About the artwork:
The flora depicted in the artwork hero two unique trees that connect the ocean to the mainland, the Ocean Pandanus and Beauty Leaf Trees. The organic patterns and forms that are seen in the trees are realised though repetitive mark-making techniques specific to the artist’s existing practice in relief-printing. The intricate patterns of these trees are amplified, brought to the foreground to be celebrated and experienced by the viewer, while remaining connected to the diversity and complexity of Queensland’s coastal landscape.
A Summer Storm mirrors the vibrant colours that are seen in the verdant landscape of Upper Coomera. These colours are also drawn from a memory of a storm passing through the area while the artist was visiting her father’s home. As the sun emerged from the storm, the golden rays beamed off the leaves of the eucalyptus trees, the vibrant green colours contrasted with the stormy purple-grey sky that was moving away towards the coastline.
Photos: courtesy the City of Gold Coast.