A Blaze in the Night

Mural in the Green Spine Linear Park at rear 35 Parer Road, Airport West. This mural concept was a collaboration with a really great bunch of young people and staff from @valleyyouthmv – thank you all for your enthusiasm and beautiful magic ideas! Also a big thank you to all locals for your support, nice chats and even just the friendly hellos ;). This project was supported by the team from Mooney Valley City Council and the Incinerator Gallery team – a particular big thank you too Amy and Richard. Great to see big community public art projects up in the North West of Melbourne! Also a special thank you to my partner Lou @geniiloci for her help developing the words/poem on the mural.

TANGLED LOVE, Solo show at Tinning Street Presents!




Online Catalogue available here.

25th October – 11th November 2018

In this new body of work, Tom Civil’s Stick Folk monikers are used as bold paintings representing everyday moments of life and community. The paintings contain stories within stories; small occurrences, intimate moments, group discussions, playing and dancing, moving together and sitting alone.

Placed alongside these paintings are a series of new large linocut and woodcut prints featuring everyday animals and plants, representing a broader connection to the land and the city.

TINNING STREET PRESENTS
Open: Thursday – Sunday, 11 – 5pm (Enter via Ilhan Lane, Brunswick, Melbourne)

LIFE TOGETHER, Solo Show 4-15 April

LIFE TOGETHER
New ‘Stick Folk’ stories

TOM CIVIL

415 April 2018

Opening Night:
Friday 6th April 6–9pm

Live Painting (kid friendly): Sunday 8th 12–5pm
Artist Talk: Saturday 14th 2pm

NO VACANCY GALLERY
QV Gallery
34-40 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne
Tues–Sat 11am-5pm & Sun 12-5pm

Gallery Cafe: Monday–Friday, 8am – 3pm

no-vacancy.com.au
info@no-vacancy.com.au

————————————–

MEDIA KIT HERE

150 metre fence along the Maribyrnong River


Mural by Ash Firebrace and Tom Civil. Painted March/April 2017.

I’d like to begin this post by recognising and paying my respect to the Wurundjeri People who are the traditional owners of the land on which this mural project was created and pay my respects to Elders past and present.

We’re all learning along this path of collaboration. And for me this project challenged me on many of levels, mainly concerning working with a large company like Holcim, on the side fence surrounding their new cement plant – the Ferrari of cement plants at that – in the heart land of urban construction. Also the challenges of developing on a past mural along the Yarra River at Dights Falls, continuing my working collaboration with the Wurundjeri Land Council.

I was approached by Matt Shinners from Holicim with the idea to do a similar mural here on the Maribyrnong River along this 150 metre fence surrounding the upgraded plant. I proposed I could only do the project as a collaboration with a Wurundjeri artist or help facilitate the process for a Wurundjeri artist to do the job. After consultation with Aunty Gail Smith, Aunty Doreen Garvey Wandin and Aunty Julieanne Axford and others at the Wurundjeri Land Council it was suggested that Ash Firebrace and myself collaborate on the project.

Ash and I got stuck into it – developing the concept of an underwater river scene with swans and hands reaching in to catch fish. The hands are actually self-portraits of Ash and my hands made from tracing our hand shadows, Ash wanted this to represent a Wurundjeri person teaching a non-Indigenous person how to catch a fish in the old traditional way. We cutout the animals and key features from plywood and painted them down at the studio to later install them on the painted background on the 150 metre corrugated fence along the Maribyrnong! I mainly painted the more realistic animals and Ash painted traditional Wurundjeri patterns on top – we were both so excited with how this collaboration turned out. And the fact that we pulled off such a large and complicated project together!

The words on the mural read:
Womin jeka Wurundjeri balluk yearmen koondi biik
Welcome to the land of the Wurundjeri people

Nang-nak berrnat-to djerring Liwik biik ba yaluk ba ngayi ngabedin nang-nak berrnat-to waar.
Look after our ancestors land and waterways and they will look after you

The mural is along the bike path on the south side of the river opposite the big Heavenly Queen Chinese Temple with the huge Chinese sea-goddess Mazu gold statue, East of the bridge (near the Footscray Community Art Centre) leading into Footscray.

 

Rock Hopscotch

I had the pleasure of painting a ground painting at Angliss Children’s Centre in Footscray located not far from the Marybrynong River. The roughly 60 metre river winds through the courtyard play area of the Centre, my hope is for the kids to make there own games out of the river, rocks, fish, eels, yabbies, platypus, bushes and flowers!
A big thank you to Chantal Wynter for all her assistance organising and these photos, and everyone at the Centre for making this happen!

anglissriver-civilanglissriver-civil2anglissriver-civil3anglissriver-civil4anglissriver-civil5anglissriver-civil6anglissriver-civil7