Guido van Helten is changing the face of the Australian outback. His murals, which chart the story of rural abandonment, are painted on 30- metre-high decommissioned grain silos in Brim, 360 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, Victoria. And since they appeared, the town's population of about 200 people has welcomed thousands of visitors arriving to view them. "There's no real reason to drive through there, but after a couple of weeks, people started coming," says van Helten, 30. "The locals thought, 'They'll calm down soon, they'll stop coming,' but, one year later, they still haven't."
Brisbane-based van Helten, whose murals also grace walls in Europe and Mexico, spent four weeks in Brim in 2015 before painting four locals on the town's silos. "It's extreme painting," says van Helten. "I had to rethink my techniques." After digitally mapping the mural on a computer to help compensate for curvature, he then used a cherry picker to bring the towering figures to life.
Since the project, street-art management company Juddy Roller secured a £123,500 grant to commission other artists to paint silos in the region. Together, they form a huge gallery that stretches across Victoria, leaving a lasting impression on the Australian outback.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
