Dvate’s mouse house ‘touch up’

By Rohan Aldous

Aug 19, 2022

Wheel nice: Jimmy Dvate’s completed yellow gum mural, at Wirima Playspace’s mouse house. The native flora was chosen because of its connection to Rochester.

Fully bloomed yellow gum flowers and quintessentially Australian gum nuts form the basis of mural artist Jimmy Dvate’s latest work in Rochester.

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The design is the final touch on the Wirima Playspace, adorning both sides of the mouse house spinning wheel that is such a popular component of the park.

It provides a unique link between the azure kingfisher, duck-billed platypus and wrist-winged squirrel glider murals that are located directly across the road on the Graincorp silos.

Photographs by Rochester photographer Sam Watkins of Eucalyptus leucoxylon connata (or yellow gum) were used by the street artist, renowned for his large-scale murals.

Hether Darbyshire, a key player in the Wirima Playspace project, said the committee wanted an indigenous floral species from the area to feature on the wheel.

“One of our committee members was walking around the Campaspe golf course and noticed the yellow gum,” Mrs Darbyshire said.

“She did some research and it ticked the boxes as a suitable local flora choice.”

She said the mural work was the last jigsaw piece for the park project.

Photographer Sam Watkins said she had taken the photos used by the Melbourne artist to complete the mouse house mural when the yellow gum was in full bloom, in spring last year.