Avid Reader turns page with daring display of Brisbane writers

A new Vernon Ah Kee mural celebrates Brisbane writers as it wraps around independent bookstore Avid Reader.

Vernon Ah Kee in front of his Charcoal Stories mural at Brisbane’s Avid Reader bookstore.

There’s something special about the neighbourhood bookstore, home to many budding creative minds and the place of many discoveries: it’s a marker of place, of community and of creativity. Think Readings in Melbourne, Better Read than Dead on Sydney’s King Street and Fullers Bookshop in Hobart.

The place in society of one such iconic bookshop, Avid Reader, on Boundary Street in Brisbane’s West End, is being celebrated and honoured through a collaboration with globally recognised contemporary artist Vernon Ah Kee.

The work, Charcoal Stories, is a large mural that wraps around the bookstore’s upper storey, and Ah Kee’s signature bold black and white text lists influential Brisbane authors, whose names fill square tiles. This mosaic of wordplay is overlaid by dark surfboard shields, which feature the names of Brisbane’s Aboriginal authors in Ah Kee’s handwriting.

“This project was a perfect balance of desperation and passion,” says Ah Kee. “It’s a leap of faith and we need more of this kind of risk and courage currently. This is a project that is new, and it needs a good start, and I thought these people have trust and faith in me – I may as well go with it and see where we go.”

The installation covers 100sq m across 52 artwork panels meticulously handpainted by the team from premier painting and art services company All City Walls, Yannick Blattner and Benjamin Werner. The company specialises in large-scale and complex murals.

This was a monumental feat, under the artistic direction of Ah Kee, a founding member of proppaNOW – an internationally respected and award-winning artist collective whose first studio was in West End, just behind Avid Reader.

The work is the flagship investment of Chrysalis Projects 4101, an initiative by Brisbane-based artist Bec Mac and business manager Carmel Haugh. It was born during the Covid crisis to support artists, revitalise local businesses and unite the community.

The duo drove a campaign encouraging the community to invest in their “place” – and particularly the valuable community hub that is Avid Reader – through meaningful public art. By early 2021, they had raised $62,000 from nearly 300 donations during the pandemic to fund the project.

The new work has demonstrated the powerful impact of collaboration, respectful negotiation and the resilient determination needed to see meaningful public art in the world, Mac explains.

“It’s a match made in heaven. Avid Reader is an iconic independent bookshop and this mural is a powerful artwork to mark the store as unique and a place loved by its community in Brisbane,” Mac says.