I discovered this large painting – about three metres high – nearly ten years ago when I was visiting James Cook University regularly for meetings in Monkhouse Road. Asking other JCU regulars about it, then or more recently, has been quite unproductive: no-one I have shown my photo to has known it at all.
Its location is the reason.
If I happened to be early for my meeting, or have time afterwards, I would sometimes continue on foot up the hill behind John Flynn College, just to get out of the urban environment for a little while. For a time the hill was one of my bug-hunting locations, too – it was the nearest dry open grassland to me and I valued it because each kind of habitat has its own invertebrate life.
To the left of the road was a big water tank. The mural on it wasn’t even visible from that road, however. Here it is in context.
The water tank was disused by that time and the inside had been taken over by one or more artistically-minded people – probably students, given the location. This view is from the hillside just above the tank.
I visited the spot last week, for the first time in several years, and was surprised to find the tank had gone. What remains may serve as an open-air dance-floor but that’s all.
