Staff reporters
Murwillumbah based professional mural artist, Sauce, was banned from a national mural competition in Tasmania yesterday and forcibly removed by police after attempting to use aerosol spray cans to paint his mural.
The unfinished mural was removed by competition organisers from the site.
Each year, the small town of Sheffield hosts the International Mural Fest with the aim of promoting local tourism and the town’s businesses. This year the competition included nine artists whose job was to paint live over the weekend in Mural Park, Sheffield, based on a miniature they had submitted.
On Sunday, Sauce was told he could not continue the competition when he began to use aerosols to paint his mural.
Sauce’s spokesperson Ainslie Rose told Echonetdaily the artist ‘tried to reason with the competition organisers, stating the use of aerosol is still using paint to apply the mural, and that no fellow competitors had voiced their concerns for his actions’.
Sauce said he was disappointed the competition ‘is not about the art and that’s a shame’.
The artist said he would have been ‘happy to be disqualified but to complete my mural regardless, and not be judged. I travelled from northern NSW to compete; it feels like a waste not to be able to finish my mural.’
But event organisers were adamant that the rules clearly state all artists must use only the paint supplied.
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