By Benjamin Millar
Heesco’s art is hard to miss.
Whether the portrait of former PM Malcolm Fraser on the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Footscray, or his mural ‘Ms Citizen of the World’ looming large on the southern end of Victoria University’s Footscray Nicholson campus, the street artist’s work is a familiar site in and around the inner-west.
A one-on-one conversation with Heesco will be just one of the myriad events lined up for VU’s ‘Learning on the Edge’ series of interactive events in Footscray from November 16-17.
Encouraging people to get out of their comfort zones, the program includes one-on-one conversation with Heesco, authors Anna Krien (Night Games) and Enza Gandolfo (The Bridge) as well as Sun Theatre owner Michael Smith and Sudanese-Australian former refugee Akuol Garang.
Heesco said he is looking forward to the conversations and curious about what people might ask.
“As is usually the case with painters who are artists, I kind of hide behind my work I guess. I’m not a vocal person, I create images and let the images do the talking in a way,” he said.
“But as a street artist, because I paint a lot in public, passersby will stop and have a chat so it does become part of the practice.”
While his street art appears across Melbourne and beyond, he has a fond spot for projects closer to home in the west.
“It’s funny how things work out, I hadn’t thought I would paint this many walls around Footscray and the west,” he said.
“When I first moved into the area I thought it would be great to paint some walls around here, it took a while to meet people and organise walls in the area but then the opportunities started coming up.”
Heesco expects conversations may turn to the role of artists and street art in the gentrification of an area, particularly somewhere undergoing change as rapidly as that recently seen in Footscray.
“This whole angle about how big murals help gentrify an area is a fair call, people do use murals to pretty up areas and it is an examples of change in an area,” he said.
“It becomes part of the process in some way, but on the other hand it’s also just a picture.”
Balancing his street art time with his studio work, Heesco is busy putting the finishing touches on his first solo exhibition in three or four years, opening at his Richmond studio on November 22.
‘Learning on the Edge’ events will take place throughout Footscray from November 16-17.
Further details: footscraylearningontheedge.com
