A familiar face has returned to Stewart Avenue years after it disappeared from the arterial street's landscape when it was covered and ultimately demolished as part of the Stella Apartment tower build.
The striking gaze of artist Matt Last's (better known as Adnate) anonymous Indigenous boy that once adorned a wall a few doors down from the artist's more recent and sprawling installation called Thirrilmun near the Newcastle Interchange, has been resurrected in a new and characteristically epic mural after Thirrilmun was defaced by vandals last week.
Transport for NSW - the state department that has responsibility for the installation's maintenance - said last week that Adnate's former mural, which depicted one of the founders of the the Awabakal Newcastle Aboriginal Co-Operative, Aunty June Rose, and her great-granddaughter Nayeli, was damaged beyond repair by graffiti.
The 25-metre mural was quietly covered last week before it was quickly painted over and the artist was engaged again to re-imagine the street canvas.
The scene now features Adnate's distinctive and evocative style of a young boy gazing out onto the street.
That image is set against a vibrant background of a breaching whale in the waters of a pre-colonial Nobbys headland at sunrise, all rendered in blue and green hues.
The latest work comes a little more than a week since the artist won the prestigious Archibald Packing Room Prize for his portrait of musician and one-time Young Australian of the Year Baker Boy.
In accepting the award, Adnate described his process as beginning with his subject's eyes.
His latest Newcastle work captures a reflected landscape in the steady and piecing gaze of his subject. It contrasts the comparatively lush image against the urban surrounding scene.
The boy's visage was originally painted about 200 metres down the street in 2013 as part of the city's Hit the Bricks festival that year.
Thirteen locations across the city were transformed by Australian and New Zealand artists over three days in late November that year, several of which were later removed during various construction projects around town.
Newcastle has nevertheless become a canvas of street art since.
That status is epitomised by art sprees like the Big Picture Fest - which returns in September - and the This is Not Art festival, which was named for arguably one of the city's most memorable street works: four sprayed-on words scrawled across the former Latec House, probably written by a risk-taking abseiler in the '90s.
While the state's transport department declined to say how much it cost to repaint the mural, its regional director Anna Zycki said the works would also include a spruce-up in the surrounding garden beds undertaken in partnership with City of Newcastle council in the coming weeks.
Letters: Vandal who cost Newcastle West its mural should hang head in shame
"These kinds of programs encourage community connection to place, and benefit both residents and visitors," Ms Zycki said.
Construction fences around the site were expected to be removed on Wednesday morning.
