Over Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th April, Creative Futures held two drop-in spray painting workshops at the Lincluden Rhino as part of the renovation of the iconic statue in North West Dumfries.
Public Art Project Worker, Kirsty Turpie, commented: ‘We had a really great weekend and it was fantastic to have the sun shining while we worked on transforming the legendary rhino. We were very lucky to be joined by local spray paint artist, ben Biddlecombe, who, joined by a group of young people, helped to create the designs and make their mark on the rhino.’
The Creative Futures Lincluden and Lochisde Project have been working on the renovation of the Lincluden Rhino since 2017 when they first consulted with the community. Following this, they began creating new artwork for the statue by holding drop-in mosaic workshops led by Kirsty Turpie ay Lochside Gala and Nithraid River Festival.
Since then, Kirsty has worked with Lincluden Primary school over a month to create mosaic patterns to be transferred onto boards for the children to start creating their own mosaics. Their mosaic panels consisted of brightly coloured depictions of rainforest animals and will be a big feature of the newly transformed rhino statue.
Over the weekend, twenty-four children attended the spray painting workshop from Lincluden and Lochside Primary School and the mosaic tiles are being installed this week. All are invited to come along to the celebration day on Monday 6th May from 1pm to 3pm at the Rhino Statue. Creative Futures will be providing mocktails, activities and music throughout the afternoon as well. The Creative Futures team hope to see as many local residents attending to celebrate the revamp of the well-known Dumfries rhino statue!
