Sydney-based street artist Scott Marsh just put the last finishing touches on a splashy 20′ mural immortalizing pop icon George Michael, which you’ll find on the corner of Bray and Flora in St. Peters.
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Impossible to miss, the towering visual paean to all things GM also has special significance to the building’s residents, as Marsh explains to The Music:
The guys who live in that building, they were both friends with George Michael and I had already been speaking with them about painting their wall. They offered their wall up to me a while ago and I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
They were telling me stories about him and their times with him in Sydney and he sounded like a pretty incredible person, so I just sat down with them and threw some ideas around. The idea we stuck with was him as the patron saint of the gays. They love it.”
Yeah, it’s easy to see why.
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Marsh claims it only took a day and a half for the sketch to come together, and he would’ve finished it sooner if Sydney’s heatwave hadn’t decided to be a bitch.
“I finished it yesterday and I was there almost all day yesterday,” he says, “from early to about 5pm, and the day before I kinda just sketched it up for a few hours. It was too hot to paint [that day], it was like 44 degrees or something ridiculous so I pulled the pin on that and went for a swim.”
Fair enough.
Related: A letter Frank Sinatra wrote to George Michael has gone viral
Important detail: Since patron saints tend to cradle some sort of magical talisman, Marsh thought it wise to paint a joint and big bottle of amyl into Michael’s paws.
“[His friends] were like, ‘I don’t think we ever saw him without a joint in his hand,” he says, “‘and put amyl in his other hand,’ and I just thought, that’s too funny.”
“[I used] gold metallic spray paint for the halo aura around his head,” Marsh reveals, “and there’s also metallic in his cross and also in his collar and stuff, so when you go past on the train in the morning, when the sun’s kinda hitting it, it glimmers.”
GameBoy
Yass, R.I.P KING
ChrisK
Ok first dumb but if they knew him then who am to say.
GameBoy
@ChrisK: huh?
Pudenda Non Grata
How do we know it is a big bottle of a pharmacologically active substance? I reckon it was some placebo or Cod Liver Oil considering his age and the ‘Choose Life’ shite and all.
Query?
This Marsh character don’t speak The Queen’s very good, Innit?
everybodywinsyay
Guy dies of either overdose or addiction and he’s celebrated with a joint in his hand. That’s real sane health right there.
GameBoy
@everybodywinsyay: Does it honestly really matter, he just paying tribute…
aequalitasTN
@everybodywinsyay: His cause of death was listed as congestive heart failure, secondary to an inconclusive cause.
I, for one, admire the man for living his life unapologeticly as he saw fit, and I have to say that this mural of a “saint” is a hell of a lot better than the typical “saints” that the religious nut jobs would throw up on a wall for veneration. Who the hell wants to live their life locked away in some convent, doing nothing to “serve” humanity but preaching and praying. What kind of life is that? This man lived as he chose and left behind a legacy. A much more interesting saint than the typical ones, in my opinion.
GameBoy
@aequalitasTN: See, that respect there. I’m 23 years old and know everything about this man of a legend. In fact, one my first albums I ever bought as a kid was his “Faith” album and Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection hehe, He one of the reasons I got into singing…
rozz01
@GameBoy: Thank you !
GameBoy
@rozz01: For What? Lol