Stawell Skate Park Mural

The Stawell Skate Park Mural Project has been initiated in response to the community's wishes to see more public art (particularly murals) in the Stawell township.

Several potential sites were investigated, with the Skate Park site at North Park Sports Precinct being the most appropriate given the time constraints and operational considerations.

Upcoming community engagement for the new Arts and Culture Strategy and Action Plan will help inform council's direction in the Arts and Culture space, including public art, for the coming four years. Keep an eye on the Northern Grampians Shire Council Facebook and Instagram pages for updates.

Northern Grampians Shire Council was excited to bring the Blender Studios team to Stawell to deliver a series of three mural art workshops to help inform the final Skate Park Mural Design.

Hosted in the April 2025 school holidays, the workshop series provided opportunities for primary and secondary-age students to learn stencilling and spray-can street art techniques, creating their own artwork to take home. Imagery and conversations during the workshops have been considered in the mural design process.

Workshop three was targeted at the broader community and enabled valuable local input, which has also informed the mural design process. This workshop also had a practical component with collage making incorporated into the session.

The final workshop held on June 12, 2025, was a stenciling workshop held at Budja Budja Aboriginal Cooperative, Halls Gap and was attended by around 20 Marrung  students from Stawell and Ararat. 

The Stawell Skate Park Mural is the second large scale mural project in Stawell in the last few years, both of which have come about through community feedback about public art in Stawell.

The Tender Process 
Council sought tenders for Engagement, Design and Mural Artwork for the Stawell Skate Park Mural and Blender Studios were the successful tenderers. The tender was open from February 19 to March 5, 2025, and advertised through eProcure.

• There were five quality submissions.
• There were two top contenders with similar response to brief and site, quality and demonstrated ability, price and engagement. 
• Weighting all selection criteria, the assessment panel determined that Blender Studio were the successful tenderer by a very small margin.

Timeline
The Engagement and Final Design are to be completed by 30 June 2025.

A series of three workshops were hosted on April 9, 2025, at the North Park Clubrooms to teach mural art techniques and also to inform the mural design and process.

• the Gariwerd/Grampians landscape that is viewed from the Skate Park
• scooter riders
• the users of the skate park - more scooter and bike riders than actual skaters
• multicultural/diversity aspect of the community
• gold history perhaps
• bright colours
• the word 'dream' in the concept proposed in the submission could be used to inspire aspiration.
• no strong reference to sport is required as other sports and running is well covered in the Stawell Central Park Mural

Mental health and wellbeing youth feedback from recent engagement.

• the top three favorite places or spaces in Northern Grampians Shire for socialising and/or recreation are local parks, lakes and sporting grounds.
• the council services that create the greatest positive impact on community are parks, gardens, leisure and recreation facilities.
• priorities that are most important to you are reducing harm from tobacco and e-cigarette use, improving overall well-being (including mental health) and tackling climate change and its health impacts.

Further consultation was undertaken with the skate park users. 95% of twenty-three young people who gave feedback on the mural concept design like were happy with the design. Of those 33% wanted a scooter rider and or a BMX rider. This suggestion was incorporated into the design.

• stronger representation of skate park users, ie a bmx or scooter to be featured
• a more accurate depiction of a gold rush era house to capture the gold story of Stawell
• the pose of the girl to be changed and more of a face and helmet shot to better represent the young people that use the skate park.

By early June 2025, after numerous meetings to fine tune the layout and elements, the design was finalised.  

The artists started on site on June 7, 2025 and worked through some cold, inclement weather to finish it the following week.

This design reflects the many impressions I gathered while spending time in Stawell and connecting with its community. Stawell is a town deeply rooted in family — where generations often live side by side, and children are central to daily life. They are nurtured, talked about, and celebrated. In Stawell, it truly takes a village to raise a child, and this shared sense of care and community shapes the town’s values and aspirations. 

Many locals embrace their own version of the Australian Dream - a home, kids, a stable job, weekends filled with sport, summer BBQs, going to the swimming pool, and the steady excitement of building a future together. This mural captures that spirit through bright colours, layered compositions and symbolic imagery that encapsulates childhood wonder and future potential. Elements like the infinite window, the spaceman, the sporting field and the running track suggest a world of possibility - a future open to exploration, growth and imagination.

Stawell is a close-knit community with a distinctive personality. Its history is long and layered, shaped by farmers, immigrants, indigenous people, teachers, café owners, and local leaders — all living together in quiet harmony beneath the breathtaking presence of the Grampians. The mountains, water features, and natural beauty of Gariwerd serve as a powerful backdrop to this story — a reminder of the enduring connection between land, people, and possibility. 

Dr. Adrian Doyle, Director, Blender Studios.