JASON CREATES ART WITH HEART FOR TWEED SCHOOL
LEARNING about the Tweed’s history has become much more colourful for students at the Tumbulgum Public School thanks to Duranbah artist Jason King.
Jason has just completed a huge indigenous Australian dot art mural depicting aspects of the Tweed and honouring the school’s founding in 1872.
It is the second art work he has created at the school – the first, which was competed last year, acknowledged the floods and took him 21 hours His latest work took 18 hours.
“Having grown up in Tumbulgum, this is a great way of giving back to the community and encouraging the kids to find out more about the indigenous culture,” Jason said.
“The various colours represent different aspects of the Tweed, the blue is the water, the green is the rainforests and the symbols, such as the circles represent the different communities.
“There are even artistic references back to Vanuatu – my family heritage and those people who were brought to the Tweed by blackbirders to work on the canefields.”
The work has drawn high praise from school principal Jenni McKeon.
“It’s such a bright and colourful work and I love that you can see it from the Tweed Valley Way. It is a fascinating piece of art.”
Having completed the Tumbulgum mural, Jason would like to do similar murals for other schools around the Tweed.
“Ultimately what I would love to do is create a series of murals with each one unique to that particularly school,” he said.
“By having them reflecting aspects of their own area, we could create a bit of an art trail which not only the students to follow but also visitors to the Tweed – it could be another unique art experience on the Tweed.”