Spring 2017 will mark the start of a new Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site Project for Exmouth. The rendered back wall of the Ocean building on Queens Drive will be transformed by Exmouth Arts Group into scenes depicting the geological epochs of time represented by the World Heritage Site. The Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods will be interpreted with paintings of marine life populations exploding in tropical seas, reptiles roasting in searing deserts and dinosaurs dominating the earth in humid primeval forests and swamps. From vast volcanic eruptions leading to mass extinctions, to fearsome carnivores – magnificent scenes will be depicted along 100 yards of wall beside the Madeira Walk to set your imagination alight.
The Exmouth Art Group has taken on this ambitious project giving members the opportunity to show their great skills to the town and beyond.
John Wokersien, a Jurassic Coast Trustee and Ambassador for the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, who chairs the group says, ‘We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Gilly Newcombe and Graham Bell of Exmouth Art Group who have led the design of the mural and are project managing the work.
Also this would not be possible without the generous sponsorship of Wilsons Paints. David and Linda Wilson have been so encouraging, offering not only paints and materials to enable this project to go ahead but their knowledge and advice about what will and won’t work. We are lucky to have such specialists in paints in our town. Steve Davies of LED has helped and encouraged us along the way and we appreciate the support of LED to allow this to happen and the owners of the Ocean Building Mr Mark Quin. Poignantly we remember Councillor Alison Greenhalgh who died suddenly in 2016. She was pivotal in driving forward the Dinosaur Trail and Mural project. I know she would have really enjoyed still being here and taking a full part. She would want it to have been known that we are representing life as it was in the world at the time and not specific creatures which would have necessarily roamed this area. Nevertheless, the fossils of many great creatures have been found along the coast that would have lived during a time when life on earth was quite different. Alison’s vitality and enthusiasm for making things happen in Exmouth will live on in the mural once it is completed and we owe our thanks to her for her vision and drive which made us all the more determined to see the project through’.
This project will definitely be Muraltastic Jurassic when it is complete.
