“I contacted her about a new social initiative. I knew heaps of artists were coming to town. Kelly asked Sean to help fit the container into the landscape more,” says Bub.
“I sent him all the information about the programme and kids. He came up with the design concept himself.”
Duffell’s design for Surf For Life’s shipping container is characteristically symmetrical, richly coloured, and cartoonishly ornate. The boldly outlined imagery includes a flowing vegetal form in bright shades of green and bursts of tropical undergrowth. Giggling blue water and a blue sky lightened by a bursting sun enhance a sense of connection with the sea and the beach environment.
Message in a container
“Sean’s design is positive and playful,” says Bub.
“When kids come to our sessions they see cool-looking street art.”
Positivity is a significant message for the young people who visit the site to learn how to surf. Gisborne Boardriders came up with the idea to make surfing more accessible because waves are free but surfboards, leg-ropes, wax and wetsuits are not, says Bub.
“A lot of deprived kids don’t have access to surfboards so we came up with the initiative Surf For Life.
“Some kids come in smoking cigarettes. They don’t talk a lot but once here, and in the water and standing up on a board there’s a dramatic shift. You see a marked improvement.”
Duffell’s sea wall
Dead or dying whales feature in about a quarter of the Sea Walls murals, and a marine-life deadland provides a backdrop to the kiddies’ cycle-park, but for his Sea Walls mural Duffell took a subtle approach to the spectre of ocean death.
The Kahutia Street mural on a wall at the rear of the Te Rau Press building sets a network of luminous blue arteries with almost psychedelic squiggles and highlights on a black backdrop.
The suggestion is that marine life in all its vivid and weird permutations is under threat but life will nonetheless prevail. How well it prevails depends on positive action from those whose futures depend on it.
