Beauty in the beast

Devonport Regional Gallery’s Creative Learning and Public Programs Officer Eve Williams with the Exquisite Tidal Beast Paste-Up Mural Project.

A collaborative mural by more than 200 students across Tasmania has seen the outside walls of the Devonport Regional Gallery donned in an Exquisite Beast paste-up mural.

Devonport Regional Gallery Director, Geoff Dobson said the 2021 Exquisite Tidal Beast Paste-Up Mural Project, was the result of the surrealist collaborative drawing game known as Exquisite Corpse.

“Each person takes turns drawing the head, torso or feet section, then folds and passes the page onto the next person.

“Without seeing what has been drawn the next person continues drawing the proceeding section of the beast until the three sections are complete. The results are disjointed creatures made up of different artist’s imaginations and impressions.”

Coordinated by the Gallery’s Creative Learning and Public Programs Officer Eve Williams, the mural saw students from across the state take part in the project. Williams said the project was designed to create water dwelling beasts and coincided with the tidal.20 festival at the gallery.

“I really enjoyed seeing all the weird and wonderful creations of peoples’ imaginations coming together to create the original art works.

“Although there are around 200 drawings in the mural, no two are the same. Seeing them all together on the wall is a great visual display of the creativity in our community and state, and I hope all those who contributed beasties to the project are proud of their mural.”

The mural was revealed to the public as part of RANT Arts’ Youth Week programming.