Back on Earth - A Mural for Marz Cummings

19 January - 18 February 2001 in the Hirschfeld Gallery

'I am making things in this world that won’t go away when I do.’

Keith Haring

For Back on Earth the gallery becomes not only an exhibition space, but an artists’ workplace in which the process of creating art is put on display with a mural dedicated to the memory of Wellington artist and muralist Marz Cummings. Friends and fellow artists paint this mural to honour Marz who died in October 1999 aged 34, but whose art and murals—including the murals in Te Aro Park (Pigeon Park), the Wellington Ports, and the Aro Community Centre—live on.

Eight artists are involved in this community project: Ellen Coup, Craig Dawick, Aaron Frater, Brent Harpur, Rochelle Hopping, Bruce McNaught, Brian Parata and Bodhi Vincent. Each are established artists in their own right, and working collaboratively, for some as muralists for the first time, they represent the artistic community Marz has left back on earth. Their tribute remembers Marz as a ‘gentleman dressed in leather and royal purple’, as Bruce McNaught describes him, whose ‘enduring works of art’, Brent Harpur says, will ‘inspire us to follow our own hearts and dreams and encourage others to do the same’.

The mural, which will be painted over two to three weeks during the exhibition, references Marz’s Māori and Celtic roots, Nelson birthplace and Wellington home, artistic skill and aesthetic. Constructed on removable boards that can be installed elsewhere in Wellington after the exhibition, the Back on Earth mural is a lasting celebration of Marz Cumming’s creative contribution to Wellington’s visual environment.