A Polish artist was pressured to change a large mural after the Dunedin City Council deemed it inappropriate.
Street artist Bezt was commissioned to paint a mural in the Scenic Circle Southern Cross Hotel car park earlier this month and painted a woman lying in a forest clutching arrows protruding from her stomach.
Following pressure from the council, Bezt replaced the arrows with a fantail.
Dunedin Street Art spokesman Dr Glen Hazelton said the mural had to be changed because it differed to the image given resource consent.
Artists had creative freedom when designing a mural but the design needed a consent before the painting began, he said.
The original consent was for a mural of a man waiting in a bar and holding a bottle.
However, when Bezt arrived in Dunedin and saw the wall, he decided on a redesign and started painting.
At the time the council was checking a new consent application, Bezt completed the mural with the arrows and the council received two complaints.
The complainants' details or their reasons were not recorded, but Dr Hazelton heard a complaint had been made because the image of somebody dead or dying was offensive to Ngai Tahu.
The council deemed the mural ''inappropriate'' and convinced Bezt to change it.
But from a social media post by Bezt, it seems he stands by his original design.
On his Instagram page, Bezt posted an image of his finished murals to his nearly 21,000 followers.
The image of the Dunedin mural included the arrows, with no sign of the fantail.
Under the image, he wrote: ''When the hunter becomes the hunted - my solo wall in Dunedin, New Zealand.''
Dr Hazelton said it was the first time the council had made an artist alter a painted mural.
Te Runanga o Otakou chairwoman Donna Matahaere-Atariki saw the mural for the first time yesterday.
She struggled to see how the mural - with or without the arrows - would be offensive to Ngai Tahu.
''Either way would have been absolutely beautiful.''
Art was designed to provoke a response, she said.
