Council comes to rescue for Sea Walls art project

Artist Freeman White works on the Sea Walls project in Napier with helper John Berryman (rear). Photo/Paul Taylor

As the second day of painting for Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans dawned, organisers were faced with a dilemma - they were one wall short.

International artists have descended on Napier for the second annual festival hosted by the PangeaSeed Foundation, to create large-scale murals around the city.

But yesterday the foundation appealed to the public for help in their search for a large wall that United States artist Cryptik could transform into a mural.

The painting days of the six-day festival officially began on Monday, but due to unforeseen circumstances the wall Cryptik was allocated to paint was unavailable.

Hours after putting the call out, festival partner Napier City Council came to the rescue by offering up the main front of its building, which faces Hastings St.

Although this wall is currently covered by the Napier Now billboard, by the end of the week it will display Cryptik's mural of a Bryde's mother whale and her calf.

PangeaSeed New Zealand co-ordinator Cinzah Merkens said the community response to the call-out for a wall had been overwhelmingly positive.

"We can't thank Napier City Council enough for quickly granting us permission to paint on their wall. The NCC are a key festival partner, and it's because of them and their support that we were able to bring the festival to Napier in the first place.

"We'd also like to personally thank the wider local Hawke's Bay community for rallying around and helping us to resolve this. We have been truly humbled by the community response," Mr Merkens said.

This new mural will be next to one created for the inaugural New Zealand festival last year by Askew One.

PangeaSeed Foundation director Tre' Packard said the matter had been extremely urgent because of the short window of time artists had to produce a large-scale work.

Cryptik hails from Los Angeles and is recognised as one of the greats of the street art world, and Mr Packard said it would have been a "major loss" to the festival if he had been unable to contribute a mural.

Yesterday Cryptik and the PangeaSeed team began preparing the wall. They encouraged the community to visit and watch the mural unfold.