Meet the artists behind Murray Bridge’s five new murals

Wall to Wall Murray Bridge has left its mark. These are the visiting street artists who did the job.

Peri Strathearn

Apr 17, 2024 — 3 min read

Justine McAllister finishes off her work on Fourth Street, Murray Bridge on Sunday. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

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Five new murals have sprung to life around Murray Bridge’s CBD as part of the Wall to Wall street art festival.

The festival had been announced in February and the five participating artists named in March, but their designs had remained a mystery until the brushes, rollers and aerosols came out late last week.

Justine McAllister’s mural on Fourth Street, on the side of the Salvation Army thrift shop, shows a woman reading a book by the River Murray.

Her pop art style was “a bit modern for some people”, she admitted, but she hoped locals would appreciate it.

Nearby, UK-based silo artist Smug painted a child with a haunting expression on the back of Murray Bridge Regional Gallery; Stephanie Cartledge and her helpers created a modernist design, Current Connections, at the Independent Learning Centre; and DREZ’s geometric patterns breathed life into the Edwards Square sound shell.

Working on their murals are, clockwise from top left, Smug, DREZ, Stephanie Cartledge and Sofles. Photos: Peri Strathearn.

For many locals, though, the star of the show was Sofles, the Brisbane graffiti artist who left a steam engine on a wall opposite the Bridgeport Hotel.

Local fans aged in their 20s and 30s milled around as he worked, talking about how he was the artist they had idolised since they were kids.

He tagged a few aerosol cans for them, and even tagged a bloke’s T-shirt with spray paint for a one-of-a-kind souvenir.

Mike Sander and Morris Green score aerosol cans signed by artist Sofles, and even a custom T-shirt spray-painted in the Bridgeport Hotel car park. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

At a launch event on Friday, Wall to Wall founder Shaun Hossack said that – inspiring people – was exactly what he had hoped the festival would do.

“I grew up in a country town … as a teenager, it felt like I didn’t have enough access to artwork that reflected me,” he said.

“You want to keep as many young people as possible (in your community), you don’t want them to escape and take their talents to the big cities.

“Projects like this have a real impact on inspiring young people to not only enjoy their town, but to participate and to do their own creative projects, to be involved in projects like Wall to Wall or start their own.”

Community leaders had a responsibility to listen to people when they came forward with new ideas, he said, instead of turning them away.

Gallery director Fulvia Mantelli hoped brightening up the CBD would help make Murray Bridge a more vibrant and livable city for people of all ages.

“Wall to Wall Murray Bridge really does fortify this region’s place on the map, statewide and nationally, as a fabulous destination for an extended visit and a great place to live,” she said.

Fulvia Mantelli and Shaun Hossack get together at a Wall to Wall launch event on Friday night. Photo: Peri Strathearn.

Ms Mantelli couldn’t give a firm answer about whether the festival would return, as it has time and again to the town where it was founded.

That will be up to Murray Bridge’s councillors and other funding bodies, such as the federal government, which put almost $90,000 into this year’s festival through its Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand Fund.

But she hoped.

The five new murals add to five which had already been painted around Murray Bridge’s CBD: Siv Grava’s 1985 heritage and cultural collage on Third Street, the 2017 Hope Street mural on Sixth Street, and three murals which were created on Seventh Street in 2020.