Escape into nature with North Melbourne’s latest mural 

Christmas joy is spreading to a prominent corner of North Melbourne thanks to a new vibrant nature-focused mural.

The mural was designed and painted by local Blender Studio artists Adrian Doyle (Doyle) and Matt Hannah (Maha) over the past three weeks and can now be enjoyed in its entirety. 

While part of the North and West Melbourne Precinct Association funding received from the City of Melbourne was intended to make the area more festive, the mural has been designed with longevity in mind. 

“I wanted to design something Christmassy, but also wanted it to be timeless,” Doyle told North West City News. 

“The main feature is a Christmas beetle, which is cool because they have a rainbow of colours, and even though the mural has greens and reds in a few months when Christmas isn’t relevant anymore, the mural will still be relevant.”

Having the mural look like a close-up of a garden was always the intention of Doyle’s design, and he said that having it on the corner of Errol and Queensberry streets was also the perfect location, due to it being a “kind of gateway to the city”. 

“Once you turn the corner you are in the city, and we were really thankful to be able to work with the City of Melbourne and 7-Eleven to lock that wall in and do something substantial there,” he said. 

“I feel it’s like a zoomed-in section of a garden, and it’s like you are almost lying down like a tiny insect yourself and being in these microscopic worlds that are within our backyards and apartment balcony gardens.”

After Doyle and Maha worked tirelessly on the mural to have it ready for December, Doyle said it felt great to have the support of the community and to see everyone walking by “interested in it, and positive and supportive”. 

To help with its long life of being a North Melbourne attraction, the mural has also been coated with an anti-graffiti coating, so that it can continue to allow visitors to escape into nature long after Christmas is over. •