ST George girl Jessica ‘Jekka’ Lloyd has become a social media famous artist while trying to help out a work colleague.
Ms Lloyd agreed to help her work friend Tina Zohl as the first artist to get involved in the Let’s Paint the Town project, aimed at sourcing local artists to paint vacant shop windows in St George.
While Ms Lloyd draws in her spare time, she had never painted on a large scale.
In meeting with the project’s themes of ‘Flora & Fauna’, Ms Lloyd projected an image of a mob of Brahmans onto the shop front and spent a week painting the black and white image.
“I just really got roped in because the girl who is running it all works in my office and was trying to get it all started,” she said.
“I did it before and after work so two hours before work and two hours in the afternoon.”
The finished mural was completed by Christmas and photographs of Ms Lloyd’s work quickly began circulating social media, with one post gaining 1500 likes and almost 300 shares.
“It went crazy,” she said.
“We were just sitting here watching it going up and up on Facebook and thinking this is ridiculous. It’s good for the town.”
Let’s Paint the Town is supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund, a partnership with Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and Balonne Shire Council to support locals arts and culture.
Artists volunteer their time but are supplied with materials to complete the artworks.
With four more artists preparing to paint shop fronts there are still four vacancies available.
Ms Lloyd said the project had the whole town’s support and she encouraged others to get involved.
“We were really worried that it was going to get scratched off but when I was painting it so many people stopped and were like this is awesome that I think if anyone touched it the whole town would be disappointed,” she said.
“It’s more exciting to look at those painted windows than empty shops with nothing in them.
“Once it gets to tourist season it will be something really cool for (visitors) to look at.”
To find out more information email Tina at lt.zohl@bigpond.com
Lucy Kinbacher
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
