Travelling artist Tony Gillies is bringing colour to Invercargill with his pavement art outside supermarkets. “I’ve been doing pavement art for 18 months and completed around 90 different artworks around the country. “I’ve done from just south of Whangarei to Invercargill . . . it was just random because I was travelling around with my partner at the time.” Aside from the pavement art, he said he had been travelling doing art across the country, from Cape Reinga to Bluff. “I just do them whenever I want now, although [Invercargill] is a bit cold today.” He said his art was well received and he received plenty of kind words from passers-by. “People say thank you, I brightened their day . . . I get people blessing me and saying prayers for me. That’s gold.” While he is doing his pavement pieces, he often receives gifts from shoppers walking past. “Quite often I can leave with three chocolate bars and half a dozen bottles of water. People feed me and it just blows me away.” He decided supermarkets were a good location as his art was always seen and said it was a good distraction from the cost of groceries. “It’s not a nice place to go at the moment and it’s getting more and more expensive.” He said he was “blown away” by people’s generosity as he received small donations in his “koha box”. “People don’t have a lot of money and yet they still donate.” Being on the road for nine and a-half years andan artist all his life, he found it to be an outlet to deal with mental struggles. “I broke up with my partner and took a social media break . . . [pavement art] is kind of an outlet. You’re not really thinking about anything else when you’re doing it.” He is now back on social media and building up a presence after being featured on the page of It’s That V Girl, a local influencer. “I had 1400 followers when I came down here. Now I’m only about 50 away from 2000,” Mr Gillies said. He said he had no financial incentive behind his art, turning down people who asked him for portraits. “That blows people away . . . I would rather just sit out on the footpath and draw. There’s no pressure.” “I love drawing but being on the road, canvases and stuff aren’t really possible. But there’s footpaths everywhere.”
