Painter George Rose on Australian Design Radio - YOU'RE RAD!
There’s nothing quite like a beautiful wall mural. Salvador Dalí became one of my favorite artists when I began to appreciate the enormous scale of some of his paintings. While traveling, I love seeking out the unexpected murals that pop up in cities around the world - especially in Australia. A painted wall can stop me cold in my tracks while I crane my neck to take it all in. So when I heard the wall artist George Rose talking about her work on the Australian Design Podcast, I couldn’t wait to check it out.
I don’t know how I ended up listening to the Australian Design Podcast. I’m not Australian, I’m not a designer. Maybe I would be those things if I could. Maybe I just really enjoy stories of people who are living their creative dream - who appear to be breaking all the rules, doing what they want, and making great work.
On the podcast George spoke about her creative process, some of her challenging and favorite projects, and her belief that artists shouldn’t sit around waiting for inspiration - like Chuck Close, George endorses showing up every day and getting to work.
After listening, I combed through pictures of her murals, relishing views unlike anything I see in my day-to-day suburban environment of highways and tree lines. My world is all earth tones - green trees, brown ground, black roads, and quiet, low office buildings surrounded by acres of parked cars. George’s work is a much-appreciated shot of color. She paints enormous walls with aggressively bright patterns and colors - they scream WAKE UP! and many of them carry a few short, powerful words of affirmation, like YOU’RE RAD!
Posted way back in October of ’16 was a photo of a small print she had done - the words ‘Mon Petit Chou’ on a wild purple and pink underpainting. When I was younger, my French grandmother had told me someday that when I met the girl I wanted to marry, I should call her ‘Mon Petit Chou,’ which means ‘my little cabbage.’ Well, I did that, then married her!
I reached out to George to let her know how much I loved the print, and a few weeks later, halfway around the world, it showed up in my mailbox! There you have it: proof that the internet doesn’t always have to be horrible.
I also wanted to share more of George’s work and ideas with my blog readers, so I asked her to answer a few questions and she obliged! Here’s what she had to say for anyone looking to learn more about wall painting:
- Where can people go online to learn more about how to paint walls? GR: hmmm - online Im not sure where to recommend - I don't really know of anywhere that can teach you about painting walls the best recommendation I can give is listening to other artists experiences, there are a handful of podcasts that interview artists and creatives about their processes - Vantagepoint Radio specifically tend to speak to a load of street artsts and mural artists and Bench Talk is an Aussie podcast similarly with a mural/street art focus.
- If you could paint any wall on any building where would it be? GR: This is so hard to answer - because there are so many amazing buildings and locations around the world I would want to paint! I love painting bigger walls - so anything up high and large. I'd love love love to get up on a drop stage as I'm yet to get on one of those - so that's my aim for next year. I think big meaty projects are what I enjoy the most.But as far as locations? There are so many places I'd love to paint - Africa, more of Asia... Middle East - look anywhere that has a large flat wall and big machines to play with makes me pretty happy.
- What's a non-art-related recommendation you would like to share - music, film, books etc? GR: Podcasts - I live on podcasts because I paint almost every day - which gives me a lot of time to spend in my own head - so to fill up the hours I'll listen to audio books and podcasts. More of my favs (excluding the above mentioned) include: You are not so smart, Free to a Good Home, No Such Thing As a Fish, The Guilty Feminist, Dragon Friends, Science Vs, Invisibilia, Hidden Brain... I have more of corse - but these are a solid start haha.