Artist Kylie Hill’s Community Connections painting will be projected in SPARK Ipswich Festival

A Kalkadoon Waanyi painter set out to capture a pre-Covid time when the community could gather but the end result bears a striking resemblance to the virus itself

Kalkadoon Waanyi artist Kylie Hill created Community Connections mid-Covid, in hope that people would soon be able to get together again. The piece will be projected on the side of St Mary's Church as part of SPARK Ipswich Festival.

An Ipswich-based artist has accidentally created a painting that shares an unmistakeable resemblance to the Covid-19 virus.

Longing for a time when people could gather and connect in person, Kylie Hill took up the paintbrush.

The Kalkadoon Waanyi woman created a painting to capture a time where the community could come together.

“When the community was going through a low and couldn’t gather as one,” she said.

“It was a sad time, where people were in lockdown, people were dying.

“(The painting) was supposed to capture the idea of us all working together as one.”

Kalkadoon Waanyi artist Kylie Hill created Community Connections mid-Covid, in hope that people would soon be able to get together again. The piece will be projected on the side of St Mary's Church as part of SPARK Ipswich Festival.

The pandemic’s influence on the painting shone through more than Hill anticipated.

The end result – a warm-coloured rounded shape with white spikes – resembled the virus itself but Hill said she hadn’t seen images of it prior to painting.

“It’s amazing – I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

“A few weeks after I painted it, someone showed me the photo of the virus.”

While the artwork is chock-full of meaning for its creator, Hill said she didn’t know which feeling or mood the painting would awaken in its spectators.

“It’s pretty emotional for me and I hope people will reflect and see a story behind it,” she said.

Hill is among 11 artists whose work will be projected on the side of St Mary’s Church as part of the SPARK Ipswich Festival (July 8-18).

Community Connections will bring to life the side of St Mary’s Church on July 9, between 6.30pm and 10.30pm.

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