Anti-nuclear artists plan to restore protest art

Artists Margaret Lawlor-Bartlett and John Eaden. Picture / Paul Estcourt

A wall of murals lines the back of the Mobil gas station on the corner of Karangahape and Ponsonby Rds - 20 broken and bruised panels with a single voice: No nukes!


It's a message Auckland artist Margaret Lawlor-Bartlett says has become as faded as the paintings she and seven other artists put up in 1985. That's why the group plans to restore their work.

"There is a renewed attack on New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance," she says, pointing to Act Party calls to smooth ties with a nuclear-friendly United States.

"We want this mural to be an ongoing statement on nuclear proliferation."

With the backing of the Karangahape Rd Business Association and area businesses, artists have been meeting at neighbouring Artstation to discuss the best way to recharge the mural.

Tomorrow the association will unveil its new plans.

Nora West, the business association's arts manager, says the project is estimated to cost $10,000 to $20,000.

She has proposed a digital reproduction of photographs taken shortly after the installation. The re-creation will be covered with a durable plastic and lit from behind, putting vibrancy back into the faded colours.

"It has become a very loved piece of local history," she says.

In 1985, Lawlor-Bartlett founded Visual Artists Against Nuclear Arms, a politically active group that painted and installed the 2.5m square panels in what was then an open car park.

That same year the French sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Waitemata Harbour - an action that catalysed New Zealand's withdrawal from the tri-party Anzus defence pact with the US and Australia.

Eight artists, including Artstation manager John Eaden and artist Nigel Brown, painted the original panels, using acrylic paint on a hardboard material.

Large portions of the faded and streaked artwork have been chopped away to add strengtheners to the building beneath.

Trucks have backed into the wall, jabbing into the billboard material. A bottle of Red Bull sticks out of one hole, and a hulking white container blocks the first four panels from view.

Eaden said the hardboard wasn't a stable enough material to work on and as a consequence it had disintegrated.