Street artist Koryu Aoshima began work on the new mural designed by 15 Dunedin school pupils above the beloved George Street Cats mural yesterday.
Last year, a plan from Keep Dunedin Beautiful to paint a new mural at the same location was met by a petition with more than 1500 signatures opposing replacing the one designed by Cornelia Fechner in 1989 and painted by pupils of Otago Girls’ High School.
The cats from the earlier design were then incorporated into a revised mural that featured the word "Ōtepoti" with each letter a unique design from pupils from seven different Dunedin schools.
Mr Aoshima said it was going to be "really challenging", but also "really fun" to paint a new mural that was consistent with the original cats.
He would work on it for about eight hours a day for the next two weeks and said it should be ready by the end of the month.
Mr Aoshima said it was lucky the mural was under a bridge, so he could work on it rain or shine.
Keep Dunedin Beautiful member and artist Bruce Mahalski said he initiated the project back in 2019 because he thought the blank area on top of the cats needed to be filled.
He said keeping the cats was a possibility from the get-go, but people jumped to "other conclusions" before the project was finished.
"It was frustrating."
Mr Mahalski said it was great to have the project under way and he thought people were going to love the finished product.
