Student artists make their mark

IF you pass the Bendigo Visitor Centre during White Night on Saturday, make sure you pay attention to the artwork projected on to the building.

The heritage post office will be bursting with colour, courtesy of local students.

Visual artist Jim Coad has been working with students from Bendigo South East College, Camp Hill Primary School, Kalianna School and, and Holy Rosary School in Heathcote to create unique works of art.

Students were given an outline of the building and basic directions, leaving most of the creativity up to them.

“I guide them through a few ideas on how to get the best out of their work, they’ve certainly come up with some amazing results for white night Bendigo,” Coad said.

“It’s the spectacle, it’s the opportunity to be able to colour a building and see it in a different way and it always gets a good result.

“It’s a fairly simple and relatively affordable way to add some colour to some streets when we’re having celebrations and festivals.”

Coad, who operates the company Video Architecture in Castlemaine, has worked on large scale projections all over Victoria but this is his first White Night.

He said he loves to explore the relationship between heritage structures and artwork.

“That interaction between the surface of the building and what you draw really makes a spectacular piece,” he said.

“I said to the young people, you’ve got the best building right in the centre of Bendigo, so thousands of people are going to see your artwork.”