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Love owls and mermaids singing in the rainbow pop

By Art Gallery of New South Wales
A person stands on a platform in front of two huge heads painted on a wall.

At work on the mural Love owls and mermaids singing in the rainbow pop 2020 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Across two weeks in October 2020, Mathew Calandra, Emily Crockford, Annette Galstaun, Lauren Kerjan, Jaycee Kim, Catherine McGuiness and Meagan Pelham of Studio A created an epic mural, Love owls and mermaids singing in the rainbow pop 2020, on the largest single wall at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Pieces of paper with designs for a mural lie on a table with a pencil, wooden stick and plastic clip.
A person mixes paint in a plastic tub while standing at a table full of paint buckets and other materials.
Two people stand on a platform in front of a mural. One is painting the wall while the other holds the paint container.
Two people sit cross-legged on a dropsheet on the floor while painting a mural.
A person paints large dots within a circular shape on a wall.
A person on a scissor lift paints the upper part of a wall, just under a high ceiling.
A person on a scissor lift paints the upper part of a wall, just under a high ceiling. Below them are work benches and a dropsheet.
A person completes a portrait of a large head as part of a mural. Other artists work on different sections of the artwork.
Two people pose in front of two large head-and-shoulder portraits on a wall.
A person poses in front of a painting of two people on a wall.
Parts of a colourful mural are visible looking across a large, darkened gallery space.

The mural – on view until February 2021 as part of Archie Plus – tells the artists’ distinct personal stories of care and connection. Together, they create an electrifying whole that offers a radically optimistic response to the present moment. Each artist portrays a person or a being who has supported and inspired them during 2020. There are self-portraits with fellow artists and writers and pictures of friends, family and pets, alongside imaginative companions. The entire joyous congregation is enveloped by the wings of Meagan Pelham’s ‘love owls’ – guardians and tributes to devotion and unconditional love.

See their declaration of the power of love and togetherness come to life.

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You can also watch two of the artists, Jaycee Kim and Meagan Pelham, talk with Yumi Styles about the project.

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