Daily Photo – Street Art by SwiftMantis
I have to say, I do like compositions where it’s possible to build up layers of city buildings without a scrap of sky. It takes a bit of moving around, a few adjustments, and a fair amount of patience, but when everything finally lines up, it creates an interesting effect. Your eye starts jumping from one building to the next, while your brain quietly tries to work out how all the pieces fit together.
The building in the centre of the photograph once had a mural by prominent international street artist Natalia Rak, titled Love Is in the Air. Unfortunately, it disappeared when the building was scheduled for repainting in 2024.
It was replaced by Palmerston North artist SwiftMantis. The original plan was to have a British bulldog gracing the wall, but animal welfare groups apparently objected. Exactly why, I’m still not entirely sure. It seems a slightly odd hill to die on, given that the dog was going to be painted on a wall and therefore unlikely to require feeding, walking or an annual visit to the vet. Still, this is Dunedin, where you learn never to underestimate the capacity of a perfectly ordinary wall to become unexpectedly complicated.
Anyway, the bulldog never made it onto the wall, and instead we now have a rather magnificent lion watching over proceedings.
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