Georgia Gordon Rock never thought she’d have her face painted on the side of a building.<\/p>\n
But after her dad sent her a link to an appeal for mural subjects in May, she became one of about 80 people to apply.<\/p>\n
Now, the 26-year-old’s image is one of 14 being painted on the soon-to-be opened Nyaal Banyul Geelong Convention Centre.<\/p>\n
The image of Ms Gordon Rock is about 6 metres wide and 6.5 metres high.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s part of an 88-metre mural painted by globally recognised street artist Tyrone “Rone” Wright who grew up at Curlewis, near Geelong.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Street artist Rone wih Georgia Gordon Rock, one of 14 subjects of his latest mural. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“It’s incredibly humbling. It’s overwhelming in a really, really good way,” Ms Gordon Rock said.<\/p>\n
“My parents have lots of Rone’s paintings all over their house so for them, it is quite a cool thing to have their daughter painted by him.”<\/p>\n
The subjects range from a one-year-old baby to a 96-year-old with the aim of representing Geelong’s cultural and social history.<\/p>\n
“I’m trying to have that transition from birth to death \u2014 that evolution of people living in Geelong and evolving here and growing,” Rone said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
About 80 people applied to be featured in the convention centre’s mural. (ABC News: Jonathon Kendall)<\/p>\n
Global artist’s local link<\/p>\n
The subjects were chosen because of their links to the Geelong region.<\/p>\n
Rone too has close links to Geelong. He grew up 20 kilometres away on the Bellarine Peninsula and has built an international career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Exploring themes of beauty and decay, he has created public art in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, London and Tokyo.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This portrait of ‘Emma’, a local chef, was painted\u00a0in Gotthenburg, Sweden. (Supplied: Rone)<\/p>\n
His work often includes images of female faces in urban areas, but this commission has been a bit different.<\/p>\n
The first subject revealed was 88-year-old Ken Mansfield, who has been a member of the local Highton Rotary club for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite surprising. I didn’t expect to see my face as big as it is \u2014 something I’ve already had comments about,” Mr Mansfield said.<\/p>\n
“All in all, there are a fair few folks who have seen it and I would imagine there will be a few more yet.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ken Mansfield was surprised by the scale of the work. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
He is grateful to his daughter, Lisa Cunningham, who nominated him and is impressed with the progress.<\/p>\n
“Until it’s finished, we won’t get a full appreciation of what it’s like but it’s looking very good,” he said.<\/p>\n
‘Representing something so much bigger’<\/p>\n
Project managers Plenary Conventions say Nyaal Banyul, meaning “open your eyes to the hills” in the Wadawurrung language, is the first convention centre in Australia designed from inception with traditional owners.<\/p>\n
The centre is intended to encourage visitors to “look deeply and appreciate the landscapes and history of Wadawurrung Country”.<\/p>\n
Half of the 14 faces on the mural will be representatives of the seven Wadawurrung family lines, whose country stretches between Ballarat, Beaufort, Geelong, Torquay, Aireys inlet and Werribee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mural is on the back of Geelong’s new convention centre on Smythe Street. (ABC News: Jonathon Kendall)<\/p>\n
One of the Wadawurrung people featured is Danae Coots, who hasn’t had her portrait painted on the wall yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She describes herself as shy and daunted by the prospect of being immortalised on a massive mural in the heart of Geelong.<\/p>\n
“It took a lot for me to get to this stage. I’m doing this not as an individual \u2014 yes [it] will be my face up there, but my face is up there representing something so much bigger,” Ms Coots said.<\/p>\n
“I have a large and proud family right behind me. I’m here representing my family of the past, my family who are here with me today, and my family of the future.”<\/p>\n
The Indigenous influence extends to the colours being used. Rone was inspired by blue ochre used by Wadawurrung people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wadawurrung woman Danae Coots says the painting will represent her past, present and future family. (ABC News: Jonathon Kendall)<\/p>\n
“We had to mix something like 126 colours to begin with and then just keep reducing them down to have seven tones for each portrait,” the artist said.<\/p>\n
“We ended up with a palette reduced down to 56 colours but if you look at the wall it feels like it’s two tones,” he said.<\/p>\n
The mural is due to be finished next month and the convention centre is scheduled to open in July next year. It’s something Ms Coots is excited about.<\/p>\n
“I’ll be looking forward to coming down here with my family, my children in particular,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure how they are going to feel about their mum’s face being so large, but hopefully it’s something they’ll take some pride in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Gordon Rock never thought she’d have her face painted on the side of a building. But after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11480,64,63,104793,104795,104786,104790,134,13658,57481,104792,104787,104789,104796,104788,104794,104791,104797],"class_list":["post-157467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-art","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bellarine-peninsula","tag-charles-brownlow-retirement-village","tag-convention-centre","tag-curlewis","tag-entertainment","tag-geelong","tag-mural","tag-norlane","tag-nyaal-banyul-geelong-convention-centre","tag-ocean-grove","tag-plenary-conventions-consortium","tag-rone","tag-rotary-club-of-highton","tag-tyrone-wright","tag-wadawurrung"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}