HOPE is the message behind a new mural in Leamington.
The colourful 70 metre long work, depicting wild animals in clothes, has been created in the children’s play area at Strathearn Gardens off Rugby Road in Milverton.
It is titled ‘Hope for Humanity’ and behind the amusing characters lies a deeper environmental message.
It has been designed and curated by Tim Robottom of Brink Contemporary Arts, supported by lead artist Gordon Landsburgh, and forms yet another of the over 20 pieces in the Leamington Mural Festival, which have put the town firmly on the national artistic map.
The latest mural, part-sponsored by Warwickshire County Council and Warwick District Council together with Art Friends Warwickshire and a private donor, was inspired by workshops Tim held at nearby
Milverton School.
Pupils were asked to pair a wild creature with human activities related to how the environment was being damaged by insensitive projects.
From the resulting designs, Tim generated scenarios reflecting the need for housing, the slowness of the construction process, the power of landowners to control development and the need for preservation of the landscape for future generations.
The sequence starts with a determined squirrel surprisingly chopping down a tree and leads to a building site where two pigeons debate progress with a slug, all in hard hats and high-viz jackets. This, with a tortoise arriving with a truckload of sand, supports the message of sluggishness in the nation’s house-building programme.
A mole sporting sunglasses pops up to observe the scene, accompanied by a toad guarding access to the open hills and a castle emerging through the trees.
A top-hatted cat sits complacently in a small boat in a lake setting before the mural ends with a woodland path leading to sunshine and hope for a better future for the environment.
There is a small shortfall in funding the Strathearn Gardens mural and any potential donors should contact Tim at [email protected] .
Tim said: “My whole life I have been concerned with issues of injustice and inequality in our society. Having discussed the environment, pollution and the economy with the children at Milverton Primary, I quickly realised that they are more tuned in to the world than we give them credit for.
“By pairing animals with human activities, it demonstrates the ludicrous nature of some of the things humans do. Our environment is essentially our lifeline to survival.”
