Carlos Mario Sanchez and Yamile Tafur Rios with the mural design inspired by their home suburb of Red Hill. Photo: ACT Government.
Carlos Mario Sanchez paints houses and commercial spaces for a day job, but every so often, he and his wife Yamile Tafur Rios get to show off their artistic side.
The latest effort for the Colombian couple is a concrete bus shelter on La Perouse Street in Red Hill, now decorated with a dazzling mural inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding their new home.
“We were thinking about what this mural could be about when we discovered there is some nature in danger in Red Hill,” Yamile says.
These species include the Yellow Box-Blakely’s Red Gum, the Button Wrinklewort, the Perunga Grasshopper and the Pink-tailed Worm-lizard.
As for the choice of canvas, that was easy.
“We feel the symbols of Canberra are the natural bush and the bus shelters, so why not combine?”
Yamile works at the Red Hill Primary School in the out-of-school care program managed by the Woden Community Service (WCS). So once the approvals came in from the ACT Government, the couple knew who to ask for help with the painting process.
“I invited the kids to come along to help paint and a couple of neighbours too,” she says.
“We had probably three families – two in the morning and one in the afternoon, some teenagers too. Kids in the primary school years are very happy with these projects, but we didn’t expect the teenagers – that was a good surprise.”
The couple hail from Colombia in South America, where Yamile studied visual arts and worked as a high-school teacher.
Soon after they moved to Canberra six years ago, they founded their own painting business and created a mural for the Latin American Cultural Centre in Red Hill.
Yamile also has a studio at the Gorman Arts Centre in Braddon, and the couple’s In the Warmth of the Kitchen exhibition at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre – featuring mixed-media works inspired by their home country – only closed last weekend.
“We try to engage with the people around us because the sense of community in Latin America is really strong,” she explains.
“The connection to families and neighbours is really important to us. We want to build meaningful relationships here and work with others to embrace the things we have.”
The couple was chuffed to see children and families striking up conversations and friendships while painting the bus shelter.
“Two women with kids met, exchanged phone numbers, and talked about how they should go for a coffee together on the first day we started,” Yamile says.
“We thought, ‘This is the most important thing we’ve done’.”
Since they cleaned the brushes and took away the drop sheets, the couple says they have received plenty of messages from people wanting more murals like this around the suburb and Canberra more broadly.
The good news is they’re coming.
“We submitted some more proposals last week and are just waiting for the answer.”
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