Mural last to go in Napier council demolition - artist responds

One of Napier’s most recognisable murals, Kaitiaki, was pulled down this week - marking the final stage of demolition at Napier City Council’s former headquarters.

Artist Elliot O’Donnell, aka Askew One, completed the work in 2016, and it received a round of applause from fellow artists watching on at the time.

The mural was left untouched until the end of the Civic Building demolition on Hastings.

“I’m fairly pragmatic about this sort of thing,” US-based O’Donnell said.

“Ninety-nine per cent of everything I’ve ever created doesn’t currently exist, so the ephemeral aspect of this type of art is something I’m pretty accustomed to.”

Demolition work on the Kaitiaki mural on Tuesday. Photo / Paul Taylor

The Civic Building was found to be earthquake-prone in 2017, and demolition work has been ongoing since last August.

Elliot said the mural was a special project in his career, and the woman in the mural was actress Frankie Adams, who he’d taken portraits of and was saving for a “great painting”.

“The work represented the closed environmental system we live within, and was meant to help people reflect on the interconnectedness of everything versus the siloed way we tend to think about things.”

It was painted during the Sea Walls festival in 2016. He said he was the last artist to complete his work during that festival, and a gathering of other artists turned up to watch him finish.

“They all pulled up in a van in the last moments as I finished. I remember hearing applause, and one artist told me he felt a bit teary-eyed seeing it in its completed state.”

The mural prior to the demolition of the Civic Building.

He said he would be willing to do another mural in Napier if the opportunity arose.

A Napier City Council spokeswoman said as concept work was in its infant stages for a new civic precinct, it was too early to say whether they would recommission the artist for a similar mural in the future.

“We are working closely with mana whenua partners to integrate stories of the whenua into the design [of the new civic precinct].”

The spokeswoman said the council was not keeping any part of the old mural.

The now-demolished Civic Building, along with the adjoining library tower, was formerly the headquarters of Napier City Council.

The Kaitiaki mural by artist Askew One being torn down on Tuesday. Photo / Celli Tamou

In 2017, both buildings were discovered to be earthquake-prone and were vacated.

Demolition work got under way on the Civic Building in August last year, while the neighbouring library tower remains vacant and its future uncertain.

The demolition of the Civic Building is being carried out by Ceres New Zealand at a cost of about $2 million.