Eketahuna mural wins national Resene competition

An opportunity awaits for selfies here.

The spectacular mural backdrop to Eketāhuna's playground has won the Best Community Mural category of the 2021 Resene Mural Masterpieces competition.

The Eketāhuna Our Town committee commissioned Eketāhuna artists and designers Katie McGregor and David Williamson of Chaos by Design NZ to create a vibrant mural for the community with paint donated by Resene New Zealand.

Winning the Resene Mural Masterpiece was just the icing on top for Katie McGregor and David Williamson of Chaos by Design NZ.

"The project was an exciting first for Katie and David neither having created a mural before. For the design Katie chose to create something big and beautiful to catch the eye from the main road," said Glynne MacLean of Eketahuna Our Town Inc.

"She incorporated large swirling koru patterns in ombré rainbow tones to celebrate our unique New Zealand heritage in a bright, modern fashion against a black background. It features New Zealand native birds, including the extinct huia and a set of rainbow wings for selfies.

"The mural, on Bridge St, took 200 hours to complete between February and July of 2021 and upon completion Katie entered it into the Resene Mural Masterpieces competition. Of the four classes they entered the Best Community Mural category as they were not professional mural artists."

Katie said, "It was an honour to be asked to update the playground mural and an absolute pleasure to do so. It feels wonderful to have a design of ours in a community space for everyone to enjoy and we are so thankful to Eketāhuna Our Town for asking us to create it."

Eketahuna Our Town committee chairwoman Rena Tyler said, "The design had been approved, then seeing it on the wall was quite different to a piece of paper, very cool. When I found out, it was just awseome news - for the town and for Katie and David.

"We've since asked them to quote on doing tall, skinny panels to put on buildings at the approach to Bridge St, so that people driving on the main road will see them and be directed to the playground."