A pair of 10-metre high Gang Gang cockatoos perched on a branch have linked Murrumbateman to one of the fastest-growing public art phenomena in the country, feeding tourism cash into remote and rural parts of Australia.
The final brush strokes were applied this week to the 12-metre high painting of the male and female cockatoos on a branch against a cloudy sky, gold wallaby grasses and gum tree woodlands.
Commissioned by the Murrumbateman Lions Club, with the local Landcare group providing ideas, the two cockatoos dominate the huge concrete tank "canvas", just across from the town's Bush Cemetery.
The $50,000 project is by one of Australia's top silo artists, Jimmi Buscombe, from Warrnambool in Victoria, with all the funds raised by the local Murrumbateman community and generous local donors.
The project began on February 5.
"This is the first time I have done a project like this where the whole community is completely invested in it," Mr Buscombe said.
"Dozens of people would visit every day and everywhere I went; up to the pub for dinner, down to the local petrol station and the local coffee shop, people would want to stop and talk to me about the painting and how it was going.
"So that has made this project a really special one."
Catherine McCutcheon, from the Murrumbateman Lions Club, said the idea for a huge public artwork on the tank emerged when the town's old, leaky water feed tank was replaced by a bigger one back in 2019.
"We had to wait for it [the new tank] to cure so while that happened we reached out to a few artists who were doing this type of work and Jimmie ticked all the boxes," she said.
"We particularly liked the naturalistic style he uses and his wildlife art; it's what we were looking for."
Mr Buscombe said that the Murrumbateman project was one of the biggest he has painted so far and is pleased with how it has "settled" into the landscape around it.
To reduce the project to a manageable scale, he worked in 1.2 metre square grids, starting out with photographs, line drawings and crayons, then switching to house paints.
The massive artwork is expected to retain its full, vibrant colour for about seven years and have a lifespan of about 15 years.
Mr Buscombe used a 20-metre high boom lift to gain access to the top of the tower and began with using a spraygun for the background before getting down to the detail with various-sized brushes and a lambswool mitt.
Formerly a chef, Mr Buscombe has done about 30 pieces of sizeable public art murals, including two silos, one at Avoca in Victoria, and another in Lismore, also in Victoria. He has a silo art map trail on his website.
Silo, water tank and large-form street artworks, many featuring Australian landscapes, people and animals, have become a major etourist attraction across regional areas.
The idea began at remote Northam in Western Australia in 2015 and has since spread across the country, beautifying enormous structures and attracting thousands of visitors and grey nomads who log onto the Australian Silo Art trail website and seek out the artworks as they travel.
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