The Shire of Christmas Island commissioned three public murals based on Charleen’s previous body of work. The CEO had been dreaming of a 3-dimensional mural that would become a talking point of the island’s tourism potential; the Governance and Policy manager wanted Paddington Bear painted on a wall to stand as a monument to all refugees and asylum seekers that had arrived on the island; the third mural was briefed as something bright and colourful for the toilet block. .Both the Shire members trusted her to bring something to life.
All the murals would be located at the Foreshore Padang, The CEO of the Shire had a vision to transform that whole waterfront, all those crumbling and decaying concrete slabs that had lain dormant since the big cyclone of ’88 that had decimated everything: the swimming pool; the cinema; that row of shops, even Bubbles nightclub. But he’d already turned it into something with picnic areas and barbecues scattered across the area; lawn bowls; a court where you could raise or lower the net for volleyball or tennis; and there was a skatepark and playground as well. People from the community were always there using the facilities.
The weather was always going to be a problem. The days were pushing 30 degrees from eight in the morning until the sun dropped over the horizon way out in the Indian Ocean. And despite being in the middle of the dry season, those angry cumulonimbus clouds kept rolling over the mountain peaks of the island with seemingly daily regularity and threatening to rain and storm.
The first stop was at the hardware store – it was the only place on the island to buy paint. You also went there if you needed to buy household items, sports clothing, and swimwear basics because there was nowhere else to get those items. Charleen got those base colours, paintbrushes, and rollers – her purchases at the mercy of the store’s stock levels because it was a three-month wait to order anything in.
When the CEO returned to the island from business he visited us at the foreshore to walk the site. We had projected an image of the underwater scene from the balcony of the restaurant that overlooked the concrete ‘canvas’. David surveyed the image from the balcony and he had that first glimpse of his dream coming to life. He wandered down the stairs and across the concrete and commented that it was bigger than he had imagined. The projection was over 50 square metres. He told her to go for it and make it happen.
The first week was a wash-out with a couple of patches that remained dry long enough for the dimensions and the vanishing points to be mapped out on the ground. We were already behind schedule and I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to complete the task in time without compromising the mural’s quality, though Charleen continued to say it would be fine. I figured she was relating it to previous work she had done but she said it was her first 3-D mural and it would be the largest piece of her career, though you had to trust her when she said everything with such assuredness.
Charleen said when you worked on public art the whole thing was a performance, so she stopped to talk to all those people, locals and tourists, who came by to watch. I wasn’t sure how she managed to smile and welcome people despite all those distractions while I hung my head and concentrated on correctly applying all those brush strokes. After they’d walk away, she’d tell me we had to keep growing the whole thing to keep people interested and excited by the progress, so she whipped down some coral reef and fish to help peoples’ imagination, then she was back on that giant robber crab and golden bosun and my belief grew that we or, more accurately she, could pull this off.
After a couple of weeks, the CEO was down to inspect the progress. He loved the crab and the bosun, which he knew everyone would associate with the island. He saw the first impression of those three flying fish and he seemed happy with the whole project. Charleen knew she needed his validation and approval for it to be a success, and we knew we’d won him when people started telling us they had seen him visiting the mural in the afternoon with his wife and taking photos.
Once those layers of ocean went down we could feel the mural come alive. Charleen filled in the reef and added some turtles and fish, and migrating red crabs, and just made everything a little bit sharper. The CEO was back for an inspection and he said that rock pillar was ‘genius’, that it allowed viewers to interact with it and the whole thing had ‘exceeded his dream’.
Story by Jake Combe – Photographs by Charleen Morris
