Pinch & Punch

Created for the 2020 Street Prints Mauau Festival, Mt Maunganui.

Walk down Steeple Lane in Mt Maunganui and you’ll come across a mural – warm, abstract and apricotty. The piece is Jasmine’s second foray into large-scale mural painting.

 “My first mural [a large public piece in the heart of Tauranga] was so bright and punchy, so I wanted to experiment with more of an earthy colour palette,” says Jasmine, who, over the last 12 years, has carved out a career spanning art, fashion, textiles and graphic design.

Before Jasmine had paint colours, she had paper. “I created the initial design though paper collage,” says Jasmine of her process. “Once I was happy with the overall feel, I scanned each of the cut-out elements into Adobe Illustrator. Then I could play around with shapes and colours to get the right balance and scale.”

It was an approach that carefully tapped into her given brief, ‘Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu’, translated to ‘Although small, it is precious’. As a result, the finished design, full of bold angles, is closely aligned with this initial guideline: look close enough and you’ll find koru and hei matau (fish hooks), and a careful balance of sizes.

In many ways, the project pushed Jasmine to explore new avenues. “This mural was twice the size of the walls I was used to painting on,” she explains. “Also, it was my first time using a scissor lift, which was a whole lot of fun.”

Information from www.jasminekroeze.com