Interview and main photo: Lara Pacillo
Sair Bean loves the thrill of painting on public walls. She welcomes the daunting heights, the challenge of gritty textures, and the community connection it fosters.
“Art can sometimes feel like a step away for people, like they can’t be involved in it,” she says. “But public art, I love how it’s so accessible to everybody. It’s for community.”
With more than ten years of splashing paint across the city, she’s navigated the path of self-validation, crediting Guildhouse for supporting her along the way. Their backing has given her the time and space to take on new challenges, like embedding augmented reality into her work, while continuing to give back through mentorship and collaboration.
We visited Sair’s home studio to talk scale, stamina and being part of a collective narrative.
How would you describe your art to someone who hasn’t seen it before?
Diverse. It’s almost illustrative in a way. It’s quite bright and bold. I love playing around with colour. I think there are enough beige walls in the city.
Some of the work is abstracted, some of it’s quite symbolic. I’m really interested in how you can tell a story pictorially and evoke a feeling through simple shapes. A lot of it is block colour. It’s definitely not realistic but rather draws on surrealist, dreamlike qualities.
What first sparked your interest in mural work?
I’ve always loved drawing and painting. Looking back, my mum really let me do bold things when I was a kid. She let me paint a wall in my bedroom and wasn’t precious about mess. I think having that freedom early on meant that, as an adult, I’m not scared to go big. I really love enlarging things and changing a whole space rather than making a small artwork.
I randomly met some artists painting down Little Rundle Street in Kent Town for a street art festival. I started hanging out with them and ended up painting a wall. To this day, it’s still one of the biggest walls I’ve worked on. I fell in love with the thrill of working big and collaborating with other artists in the public realm. It’s so different to anything I’d done in the studio where I found I felt quite isolated.
How do you usually approach creating a mural?
It’s different for every project, but what really energises me is working with community members. I get a lot from working with young kids or adults who live in the area I’m painting. I want people to feel like they can see themselves in the work.
Sometimes I’ll run a community workshop. My block colour and collage style lends itself really nicely to that. We’ll have a loose theme, people make shapes, we chat, layer things on top of each other and see what happens. Then I take all of that home and work it up in Procreate on my iPad. The design process is is quite lengthy for sure. The painting is the fun bit.
How long do your murals usually take to complete?
My biggest wall, on the side of Castle Plaza in Edwardstown, took six weeks. It’s 43 metres long and seven metres high. It was winter, so there were days I couldn’t paint because of rain, and the wall itself was really porous and thirsty. It was like stabbing the paint.
I ended up using a spray gun for most of it. You definitely need a strong, able body to do public art because it’s super physically demanding.
Other projects might only take five days. It really depends on the scale and the weather.
What’s a project you’re particularly proud of?
Earlier this year I worked on a mural with Guildhouse and the City of Adelaide on the side of the Foodland building in North Adelaide. I really pushed myself because I felt like I had the time, energy and support to do my best work.
The budget allowed me to explore ideas I’d been wanting to try for a while. I experimented with animation for the first time. There’s a QR code on the mural you can scan with your phone, which takes you to an augmented reality artwork that moves. The big gum trees become abstract and surreal, with leaves growing and shifting. I’d never done anything like that before, but I felt supported enough to try, and now I want to do more.
How did you first connect with Guildhouse? How have they supported your practice over time?
I think it was through other artists. As a public artist, you need public liability insurance – for you’re working at heights or running community workshops – so I joined as an accredited member for that reason. I didn’t realise how much else came with it.
They’re genuinely my favourite organisation to work with. When they’re involved in a public artwork, they really advocate for the artist. They make sure you’re paid properly and take a lot of the admin pressure off. Every project I’ve done with them has run smoothly, and when issues come up, they’re straight onto it.
They also offer professional development, business workshops, one-on-one advice and practical guidance around things like pricing and design development fees. That’s been huge for me, especially learning to value my time properly. They’ve helped me feel more confident running my practice as a business.
What role does your studio play in your practice?
It’s tidy at the moment, but it’s usually a bit of a dumping ground pretty much for all my materials. Quite often, if I’m working on a project, I’m just in and out, reloading paint and cleaning brushes.
It’s definitely my little safe bubble. There’s paint, clay, wire, sculpture, such a broad range of materials. It’s where I can play and experiment.
Are there any upcoming projects you’re excited about?
I’ve recently been successful in a project with the City of Charles Sturt. It’s a super long mural at a community centre, about 73 metres long and three metres high, wrapping around three sides of the building. I’m working on it with Chelsie Morey, an emerging artist who I was lucky enough to mentor through the Helpmann Academy Creative Innovator program
I also just finished a project at a local school where kids helped design and paint a mural together, which was really special.
What advice would you give to people wanting to get into mural work?
Work with other people. Come and work with me!
I get a lot of energy from collaborating, and I love teaching emerging artists. I make a point of including artist assistants in the budget so they can learn new materials and processes. It feels like giving back, and it’s a win-win.
What do you hope people feel when they see your work?
Joy, mostly. My work is really playful. I want to lift spirits and activate spaces, to make people think differently for a moment rather than just passing through the mundane.
Sair Bean: Instagram
Find out more about Guildhouse’s membership on the Guildhouse website
