The woman is our city

The latest addition to the Colour Our City initiative is a mesmerising mural by Whangarei artist Jenny Bennett.

Jenny has called it her painting “Homage to  Hundertwasser” and it features one of the faces so dear to the artist’s heart.

Preparing to paint the mural, Jenny tells us she went into an intense period of studying Hundertwasser’s work “to get in the zone”.  It was his faces which really spoke to her and the face she has produced for us is very compelling.

Jenny describes her image…

” I have included our maunga (Parahaka) and our awa (Hatea/eo), river, boats and our waka. The W of Whangarei has juggling balls… will the balls fly or not?  The colour blue; the void, infinity, possibility, electricity,  or electric city.

“The woman is our city. Her mood could be sad, bewildered, curious, resolute – whatever we want to see, or be. The two sets of eyes (referencing many of Hundertwaser’s works) for me represent different ways of looking at things, or different points of view; failure to see, being hypocritical (two eyes, two faced).

“Along with many others I was happy to do all I could to get this project off the ground”.

The AE! in the bottom right of the image is of course te reo Maori for YES!

Jenny’s mural can be seen on the wall outside Variety #1 on James St, Whangarei (next to Kathmandu).

Just to the left of the painting is another board featuring the famous Hundertwasser quote:

“When we dream alone it is just a dream
but when many dream together it is the beginning of a new reality.”

Jenny Bennett’s website is here.

Photo credit: Steve Sharp