Reservoir Public Mural Program

I'm TextaQueen and I've done this mural outside the Rezza Library. Yeah, I designed this mural thinking about what plants, flowers, flora is indigenous to this area and then blending it with other living things. I chose the pomegranate as the main icon of the mural because it has such cultural significance to people from the Middle East and across Asia, which there's a lot of people from those areas of the world that live here. Pomegranates represent like abundance, fertility and I think they're really hopeful. I often use text in my work and I wrote the title of this mural which is "Filling a fervour for a fertile future" which seems to be in sync with the ideas of hope for the future. I really like Rezza and I've lived in different parts of Darebin. Yeah, I find it like a friendly, unpretentious place.

The mural that we've made for Reservoir is a combination of our two styles and also the things that make Rezza beautiful and unique. There's a woman holding fruit, there's some kids playing and bright bold colours. And things that just make you feel like really nice and warm. Reservoir is unique because it's very diverse and it's multicultural. I live close by and I come here to visit friends and to use the playground to play with my daughter. Our collaborative practise has been going for about a year now. It's really nice to work in public places with someone else and try and bring our styles together. Also, when we're painting together, it's just a really nice time rather than being out here by yourself and just kind of, you know, being in your own head. It's quite nice to just hang out with someone else whilst creating something, hopefully that the community really enjoys.

I am the artist behind the mural 'Three Creeks', which is right behind me. It's about 95 square metres that I've painted. I know this toilet block intimately. My practise is - it's changed over the years. It used to be sculpture, but since then I've always fallen back on my illustrative work because I just love fineliner. I guess my subject matter always goes back to birds as well. They're just part of my world. The mural and my inspiration for it was, obviously "Reservoir" refers to a body of water. Reservoir itself has three creeks running through it: Merri, Darebin and Edgars Creeks. More so than fences and perimeters that divide us, creeks bind us. When I thought about what makes Reservoir special to me, it was kind of the relationships people have - neighbours have, my personal experience with my neighbours and people in the street. There's a beautiful community, lots of different people from different cultures and I love it.

I'm Emily Green and this is my mural 'Yummyvoir'. I work as a jewellery designer, and I also paint. I really love colour, and I really love exploring different colour combinations. My mural is a celebration of the food of Reservoir, the different types of food we have, and also of food as a means of bringing people together. So there's sausages from Folino's, a banh mi from Vy Vy's, a cheese pie from Lakeside Bakery, ice cream from Cono. I also wanted the mural to look at the homegrown produce, the food that we share with each other from our gardens. I've lived in Reservoir for the past ten years. My kids both go to Reservoir Primary School. It's a suburb that I love and I've seen evolve. It's a massive suburb, so I think it brings together a lot of different cultures and interests and nationalities.

The inspiration for the mural came about upon visiting the site. It's a very narrow laneway, not much opportunity to step back so I thought it would be a good opportunity to do an anamorphic style mural, which is an optical illusion. So when you're standing on the footpath on Broadway, you'll see the optical illusion effect. It appears like something is coming out of the wall. But then you can go in front of the mural as well, and you see that everything's kind of stretched. I was fortunate enough for my ten-year-old daughter to allow me to use her as a reference, and so she's kind of that symbol of the future. So we got the water splashing from behind her, from this old tap. Referencing, I guess, the beginning of the suburb Reservoir, which is from the connection to Melbourne's water supply. To me, what makes Reservoir unique is that there's an authenticity and a realness. As someone who lives in Reservoir, I feel that it's got a great sense of community to it as well.