A longtime advocate for enhancing the look and feel of Waikouaiti has collaborated with a local artist to lift the town’s main street.
Progress Waikouaiti Area (Powa) community engagement manager Sonya Billyard worked with local artist Sig Peters last year to bring a new mural to life.
The artwork is located off Main Rd (State Highway 1) down the driveway beside boutique gift store Petal Studios, leading through to women’s clothing store Room 191, adding an unexpected visual highlight to the area.
Mrs Billyard, also a Waikouaiti Coast Community Board member and building owner, said the mural not only added character to a previously overlooked space but also reinforced the value of creative collaboration in strengthening Waikouaiti’s main street.
‘‘With a collaboration between myself as the shop artist and the artist, locals and visitors are now being rewarded with a moment of art, tucked just off the main thoroughfare, inviting people to pause, look closer and enjoy something uniquely Waikouaiti,’’ she said.
Originally from Australia, Peters, who moved to Waikouaiti last November, specialises in vibrant community murals and when she saw the blank wall she thought ‘‘that needs some love’’.
‘‘It needed something fun and exciting.
‘‘I initially reached out to Amy in Petal Studios and told her I was a mural artist and thought the wall was a good opportunity to do something ’’ she said.
Peters said she wanted the mural to be simple but eye-catching.
Rendered in a classic black-and-white style, the mural reflected Mrs Billyard’s personal love of nature, and featured delicate fantail and dragonflies throughout the design.
Large floral elements anchored the piece, a signature style that Peters, also known as The Pink Galah, previously explored in mural work across Australia.
‘‘It was a reflection of Sonya’s ideas of nature and also the colours of her business branding and when I think of New Zealand I think of the All Blacks, so it worked out really well with our thought processes.
‘‘Then with Amy in the front of that building with Petal Studios, I wanted to tie that in and include flowers - it was cohesive and reflected both of them,’’ Peters said.
As a mother of four boys, Peters said despite starting the mural in December, other factors had led to it not being completed until last week.
‘‘I’m from a place called Cobar which is nine hours west of Sydney, so very far west of New South Wales in the red dirt - I’m used to being able to work in 40°C, in pure sunshine, so the weather here was very different.
‘‘It took a lot longer than I initially thought because I didn’t factor in the weather and also then school holidays with my boys,’’ she said.
Peters’ husband is a mine manager at OceanaGold and when they initially came to New Zealand they were based in Dunedin, although she said after living in the outback and being closer to nature they were enjoying being based in Waikouaiti.
