Morning

A few more new murals. Looks like a series celebrating some great sporting moments.

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Bananas $2.00
The little blighters were up to $2.50 last week

Afternoon

The first batch of new murals is up. Can't say I'm all that impressed, the styles are a bit dated. They might grow on me I guess.

Anyway, here's the pick of them so far.

Feeling sentimental about the missing murals, I sent a brief thank you email to the Public Art Squad. I got very interesting replies from two of the original artists.

David Humphries:

"Two of the murals were a collaboration with Aboriginal artist Banduk Marika, who won the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal Award. Her mural depicts a sacred place, Yalangbara, a beach and water source place in Arnham land where her ancestors landed."




Rodney Monk described his efforts to preserve the murals:

"I approached City Rail/RailCorp in a number of ways, at a number of levels and on a number of times from 1986 to last year regarding re-painting some of the existing and the development of new murals for the tunnel. It was a fruitless task and eventually I discovered that City Rail did not value these artworks, commissioned by them and created in the mid 1980's via a professional art group dynamic enough to restore them and develop new ones.

As I understand it the payment to (youth) artist for the new works is to be an mp3 player. Lets hope that the works are good."

Some other Sydney landmarks painted by Rodney:

Afternoon

A blanker than usual experience walking through the tunnel this week. The murals are gone – painted over with a dirty yellow, hopefully temporary.


Some new murals coming soon? Well it won't be the winners of the 150 Years of NSW Rail mural competition. I hope RailCorp is sensible enough to use professional artists rather than enthusiastic high school students. Unfortunately, one of these options is expensive and the other is free.

As one bunch of Public Art Squad murals sets up camp in the memory, another rises from the ashes of time ...


These murals on Pilgrim House, corner of Pitt and Park Streets, had been painted over since 2001. The Squad's campaign to restore them must have succeeded – back in pristine condition.

Afternoon

This poor kid was quite alarmed by an ear-splitting performance of "Nessun Dorma".

Morning

Pert, pretty, pious and a darned fine ventriloquist, Geraldine Ragan was the quintessential Miss America.

Morning

After a period of traumatic personnel changes, Kronos Quartet debut with their new lineup.