Student mural to brighten up site

A MURAL depicting a swan flying over Henley and the River Thames adorns the hoardings outside the former Henley Youth Centre.

The 100 sqm (1,076 sqft) painting was designed by nine students at The Henley College, which is opposite the site, and was completed on Thursday.

It features hippos to represent Leander Club, Temple Island, Mr Toad and Mr Mole from The Wind in the Willows, willow trees, rowers and Henley Bridge. There is also a yellow submarine in homage to the late George Harrison, the lead guitarist of the Beatles, who lived in Friar Park.

The students at the college spent two months working on ideas for the mural, coming up with two designs. The landowner chose “Swan Song” over “Toad Without a Road”, which also featured characters from Wind in the Willows.

The college had been approached by Sheridan Jacklin-Edward, the clerk of Henley Town Council, with the project with a view to brightening up the area. The youth centre site has been derelict for about seven years.

Students took part in workshops with artist Mani “The Big Orange M”, from Oxford, to come up with the designs. Spike Payton, 18, a foundation art student, sketched out the design, including the swan.

He said: “Swan Song was mainly focusing on contrast and trying to get across the big, main imagery of the swan flying.|

“Swans are all owned by the crown so they have got historic symbolism, especially around here. It symbolises flying away and leaving behind all the pollution and the rubbish and all the bad effects of humanity and going towards a utopia of equality between nature and mankind.

“After the last royal regatta, there were lots of people who got sick because the water quality has gone downhill drastically. Whenever it rains, sewage is pumped into the river and there has been a spike in chemicals and harmful substances. The mural raises awareness of that.”

The mural has a neutral colour palette but with “muddy” colours to represent the effects of river pollution. The utopia section of the design is brighter with pink and green hues.

Mr Payton, who lives in High Wycombe, said he feels “privileged” to work on the project alongside his classmates. He said: “It’s good work experience and it’s good to understand things I wouldn’t have considered before like risk assessments.

“I’ve not worked with anyone on a project before and it’s helpful getting everyone’s input because you get a broader spectrum of ideas.

“We ’ve never done something to this scale before but Mani has been our rock.

“He has helped us get better at communication and planning skills and management and thinking deeper about what you’re doing because you have to think about what you use, how you use it, while working with a client because you can’t just do what you want.

“You have to get it to hit the brief.”

Aela Martin, 18, from Maidenhead, said: “We took bits of Henley’s iconography and we’ve taken bits of the town to bring it all into one big piece.

“All of the sketches are done by hand but we also made mood boards and colour palettes which were all done digitally. We made a collage of roughly how we wanted it to look on the wall with second hand imagery and combined it all to see what it would look like in one big piece.

“We ’ve got rowing and the regatta and the Wind in the Willows — it is quite iconic.”

Miss Martin said it felt “special” to be part of the project. She said: “It’s a piece the Henley community is going to see. It’s exciting. To be a part of something like this feels amazing.”

Mani said the project was a “brilliant” way for the students to produce work that would have an impact on the community. He said: “We all want a cracking end result.

“This is an opportunity for them to do real world work. I hope this provides more opportunities for artists here with the college.”