Art galleries and exhibitions are few and far between in a small Queensland sugar town, but its streets certainly don’t lack color.
Power poles in Lucinda have become canvases for an artist who gets his inspiration from local legends. And for him, this outdoor gallery could rival its most famous worldwide counterparts.
David Rowe looks like a workman but he is actually an artist and his truck is a mobile studio.
Every morning, Rowe stops on the side of a street in the quiet seaside village of Lucinda in northern Queensland and gets to work on a new piece of art. “It’s really nice to get down here early in the morning and actually paint, it’s nice, and no one is telling you what to do. I haven’t got a boss. It’s great,” says Rowe.
The town commissioned Rowe to embellish its streets by using power poles as canvases. “You walk in and it’s like the Louvres, you walk around in amongst everybody and have a look at the poles, not quite like the Louvres, but anyway. Just as important!” says Rowe.
Rowe first painted the poles 20 years ago and now he’s back to revive them with a new coat of paint. “Some of them you could hardly see the picture and you were looking at them and they just looked horrid. They looked sad,” says Progress Association Secretary Jane Petersen.
“It’s been Yasi plus a few other cyclones. But the best part about it is none of them has been graffitied, not one of them,” says Rowe.
The main topic of the paintings is fishing mixed in with local characters. One of them is Walter Putzka, a mackerel fisherman who died of cancer last year. Putzka’s wife Lisa says his memory is kept alive with this tribute outside the family home.
Working outside means Rowe often has to stop painting to chat with locals. “It’s funny you paint away and someone turns up, a little old lady turns up, and she decides to tell you all her problems and you say ‘yes love, yes love’ and, it’s a nice community down here,” says Rowe.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.