The Mural
Community Bank Samford opened this community mural, our gift to Samford, on Friday 2nd June 2023.
Collaborating with Creative Samford, five artists were commissioned to paint each of the panels, depicting our indigenous origins, pioneering history, local plants and animals, and the present day.
The full mural
The Mural Panels and their Artists
Panel 1
Artist – Lauren Rogers
Lauren is a young, contemporary indigenous artist with ancestral blood lines to the Ngarabal nation. She is self-taught and began painting at a very young age.
Lauren says that art is a very important platform to share her culture with the wider community. Her inspiration comes from her hometown’s changing landscapes and from her travel around Country.
She uses layers of fine dotting, line work, colour gradients and Aboriginal symbolism/conography, and mostly enjoys painting her works intuitively.
For this first panel, Lauren chose to interpret the river as having pools of water which occur as the river runs bubbling down from the mountain range.
The wattle is very important in Indigenous culture for food, medicinal purposes, and firewood. The sky is depicted with clouds which often occur over the range and Valley. The rocks appear all around the river and Samford Valley.
You will also find a leaf, sightly hidden from view, which begins its journey in Lauren’s painting and travels across all five panels before heading out to Moreton Bay.
Panel 2
Artist – Sean Leahy
This panel depicts aspects of our local history. It highlights the beginnings of early white settlement and industry in the Samford area and includes cattle and dairy farming, banana and pineapple growing and timber cutting.
The logs which were cut down using large crosscut saws in the surrounding ranges, were sent to be further cut to size to make paper at the Petrie Mill which relied heavily on the river for water. They were also used to build the slab huts for the settlers.
The panel also includes the first school and the horse drawn drays of the time.
Finally, the tragic train crash in 1954 which ended the rail connection to Samford is also pictured.
Panel 3
Artist – Glen Pacholke
In capturing the local animals of Samford, Glen aimed to paint some of the everyday interactions between animals – usually unseen by us except in fleeting moments.
Birds harassing other birds, secretive animals that operate in the dark or under logs, and of course the noisy ones too like Cicadas.
Glen also included some fun aspects – Koalas probably don’t get harassed by cockatoos, and ‘bin chickens’ don’t wear helmets!
Panel 4
Artist – Tatiana Afonina
We are surrounded by a beautiful and ever changing display of plants, trees, shrubs and flowers.
Our love of nature is evident in the beautiful local gardens and the local community groups that support our environment – these are what Tatiana wanted to capture in her painting. Butterflies and bees, the busy pollinators are also depicted.
Panel 5
Artist – Marie-Ann Coyle
Marie-Ann is an artist, sculptor and jeweller.
The streetscape and vicinity of Samford Village has many interesting buildings and their history is recorded in the Samford Museum.
This painting is a non-realist style to enhance the country genre. As Main Street continues to evolve, the inclusion of the original Catholic Church, the Farmers Hall (1918) the Samford Hotel, the Rural Fire Brigade and the Slab Hut are important reminders of our history.
