This article was originally published on OiYOU!'s blog, your go-to for all things Christchurch street art. Reproduced with permission. Visit the blog of OiYOU! here.
Christchurch’s newest central suburb, the SALT District, is named after the streets that hem it, Saint Asaph, Lichfield and Tuam. The people of the district had already identified themselves with innovate bars and restaurants but it needed a backdrop. Oi YOU! were brought in to help create this much needed signature piece of artwork. An awkward wall on an odd looking building was the obvious place to create the mural but it wasn’t the easiest wall to work with.
Oi YOU! quickly realised that it didn’t lend itself to a character based work and an abstract idea quickly became a 3-dimensional one. Once the concept was established we knew that Paul Walters was the artist to turn the vision into reality. He came up with a series of options but the one that the wall became was the stand out. After a number of reworks, the final artwork, that spells out the word SALT, was presented and received with excitement.
That was just the start, then the artwork had to be delivered. Paul, using traditional techniques, used only a pencil, a series of seemingly simple stencils and a very steady hand to mark up the wall. Every inch of the wall was painted by hand and each line painted only with a brush using no masking tape whatsoever.
The bottom section of the wall was conceived and delivered by Dcypher with the able assistance of Paul Walters and the Oi YOU! team who, under the guidance of these two masters, had polished up their brush skills. To find out more about the mural and see how it came together via a time-lapse video check out the article on Stuff here.
