Zachary Bennet-Brook is a Dharawal man from Wollongong whose fascination with the sea and surf inform his art practice. His first ever mural was painted on the Bondi Sea Wall and now he is up to his third in this location. This latest work, entitled Travelling, portrays the connections between us all. The colours represent the ocean (turquoise), sunrise and sunset (purple) and the land.

Zac has painted countless murals on school walls around the Sydney and Wollongong areas, including one at Bondi Public School. As a trained teacher (he has since become a full time artist) he still likes to connect with school kids through his art. When he started out he painted with sample pots from Bunnings, but now uses a combination of aerosol and exterior house paints.

You can see more off his work on his website, saltwaterdreamtime.com which includes surfboards and fins (both as artworks to be hung on walls and also as functioning surfboards). He has also designed football boots and balls for indigenous rounds of the AFL and NRL.

Also this week we meet Luka Lesson. He won the 2011 Australian Poetry Slam, a national competition in which poets have to perform original works using only their voice and body. This has become a real passion for Luka and now he has turned his art in to a theatrical piece called Agapi & Other Kinds of Love.

The show combines poetry, rap and classical Greek history as it explores the seven different words for love, according to Plato’s The Symposium. The story is told through the words of Socrates before the gods take us on a journey into the present, ending in modern day Athens in the middle of a riot. He is accompanied by live musicians.

There is a short season at the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta. 29 February – 1 March.

Arts Wednesday 21 February 2024

89.7fm

eastsidefm.org/artswednesday

DAB+