New Zealand’s top mural artists seem to have Southland under a colourful spell.

Visitors to New York can spend whole afternoons staring at the walls in the First Street Green Cultural Park, while a trip to Melbourne is never complete without traipsing round the everchanging murals in the city’s famed laneways.

Now, visitors to Southland can be similarly transfixed by large scale art being produced in a project that started in Riverton in 2018 and has now spread to Bluff and Gore.

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Invercargill street artist Deow founded and launched the South Sea Spray festival in 2018 and says the emerging street art trail should serve Southland well as it focuses on new ways to entice visitors to the region.

“Riverton was a couple of years ago, pretty small scale. We had seven artists, did seven to eight murals. It definitely had an impact [on the town]. And last week we worked in Bluff, did 15 large murals there and some smaller works. That’s definitely had an impact too,” he said.

Artists in Southland include ex-Gore artist Sean Duffell, Shane Walker (Tauranga), Kell Sunshine (Wellington), Chimp (Wellington), Charles and Janine Williams (Auckland), and Japanese mural artist, Koryu Aoshima.

Deow said the Bluff community swung in behind the festival by watching the artists as they painted the buildings, supporting an exhibition and taking part in street art workshops.

“It was huge. I have never had one week in Bluff continuously before. There were streams and streams of people, walking around and looking at art,” Deow said.

He estimated the festival in Bluff would have attracted about 2000 people, “and even if 50 went into a shop and bought something” that would have been a win for the community.

Brilliant in blue . . . an artist works on a Bluff street art work during February. PHOTO: Facebook

In Gore, a minimum of eight large murals should be completed by Sunday (February 28).

Deow is curating the selection of Gore murals and through his entity, South Sea Spray, and Facebook Page, plans to create a trail guide to all the buildings that have been painted thus far.

South Sea Spray’s biggest project still looms: Invercargill. 

About 30 to 50 murals are being planned for the southern city, which Deow describes as the “cherry on the top”.

But that project would not begin until the $200 million Invercargill civic centre redevelopment is finished.

“We’ve decided we will come back [to Invercargill] when everything is a bit more settled and established, because then I feel we might have a longer-term impact,” he said.

“Each mural tells the story of a journey of artists in New Zealand . . . We hope to do 100 in the next two years. It is an entity that is growing and building relationships. It is a family.”

Former Gore artist Sean Duffell is one of the team working on Gore's Streets Alive project. PHOTO: Supplied

A single artwork can cost at least $10,000 to paint, with some large-scale artworks heading upwards of $30,000, Deow said.

“We literally painted at least $100,000 worth of art in Bluff in one week, which was more than any organisation has done for public art in New Zealand that week, and it reaches 100 percent of the community. For me it is priceless. I understand the value of it,” Deow said.

He said it was common at the start of a project to attract comments about tagging, but as the days progressed the same people would be stopping their cars and getting out to exclaim “Oh My God that is amazing”.

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In Gore, Deow has painted a 5- to 6-metre-tall horse, drawing on the history of using draughthorses in agriculture in the district’s early days.

Other artists were telling Gore’s story with images ranging from flowers and love hearts, to trout, the Hokonui Ranges, and montages of memorabilia.

“They are all connected somewhat to the land. It was the same in Riverton and Bluff, creating a connection to where they are,” Deow said.

Gore District Council Roading Assets Manager and Streets Alive project lead Peter Standring said the street art trail delivers on one of the project’s main aims, to get people out and about enjoying the town’s streets. 

“The vibrancy this art will contribute to town is a fantastic way to lead into the Streets Alive programme. 

“Encouraging creative street spaces was a key theme that came through in our conversations with the community, so we’re really pleased to have this fabulous part of the programme underway,” Mr Standring said.