Whilst in Mexico I attended a cocktail party to welcome the new Australian Ambassador and his wife to Mexico. Having a drink with him on the balcony he said, “seeing as you are here and we have some money to fix the place up, how about painting a mural on this wall?”. I could not say no.
We started off with a questionnaire and people bringing in images, talking about the political ramifications of works of art, countries, boarders and diplomacy and how they all related. From this information gathered, I came up with several designs which were discussed, voted on and one eventually chosen. The final image chosen was of Quetzalquatal; a plumed serpent and very important in Mexican mythology, combined with the Australian Rainbow serpent. Due to the Aboriginal implications of the Rainbow serpent, this design was denied, and a second more abstract serpent/landscape design was implemented.
The implementation started with a rough outline and developed into a very ‘painterly’ experience with people adding their thoughts/emotions to it resulting in a mural that bared little resemblance to the initial design.