The result will be an unmissable piece of contemporary art, situated opposite the Moama Bakery.
Ultimately, the house will make way for the Bridge Art Project’s keystone infrastructure, a $6 million gallery.
In accepting the commission, Ash Keating expressed his enthusiasm for the task.
“I’m looking forward to creating a striking and thought-provoking piece that drives a conversation about the benefits a gallery can bring to a community,” he said.
The creation of Mr Keating’s artwork will be great spectator event and will be captured with photographs and video for social media posting.
Mr Keating is known for his large-scale, vibrant and challenging works that examine landscape and industrialism using vivid abstractions.
More recently Mr Keating has worked on smaller-scale works for gallery exhibition.
He will be in New York next month for a much-publicised exhibition in which he will respond to the growing thirst for his work to the international arts community.
Mr Keating’s past methods have included the utilisation of giant fire hoses to compose fluorescent abstractions of industrial structures in open landscapes.
He has recently completed a commission to paint the exterior and interior of the Warrnambool Art Gallery.
The Bridge Art Project committee is delighted to host Mr Keating in the coming weeks and secure him as an ongoing friend of the project.
“Ash Keating is ideally suited to raise awareness of the efforts of the project to pursue our gallery in Meninya St,” project communications director Jacqui Donchi said.
“We continue to focus on fund-raising for the project, and Ash’s spectacular work will raise awareness of the enormous potential of the gallery and other elements of the project.”
Bridge Art Project founding chair, now consultant, Barry Donchi is overwhelmed with the gesture of support.
“We have been working on the project for a near decade. Ash Keating has given us a huge leg up in the right direction at a critical moment,” he said.
Mr Donchi said the existing unfinished house structure on the site of the proposed Meninya St gallery was “regrettably unsound structurally”.
“It can’t be used for any part of the proposed gallery. It’s set for demolition in a few months. As bizarre as it may sound to have a great artist render a modern building and then pull it down, Ash seemed to love the idea and we see the genius in it, too.”
“The demolition is necessary for us to make way for a structurally sound, purpose-built gallery and outdoor arts trail that with the right support, we hope to extend through the bush lands, down to the river, around to Horseshoe Lagoon and back up into the proposed Meninya St main street precinct.
The Donchi family, along with other generous local arts donors, purchased the land and donated it, along with other private land access, to the project, which allowed them to offer the unfinished house structure on the Meninya St-facing property as a blank canvas to the celebrated artist before it is demolished.
Allison O’Brien and Jacqueline Berthaume, who lead arts communications on the committee, said the artist was encouraged to use the unfinished house as an limitless “Carte Blanche” for experimental art work.
“It’s not often you have the opportunity to make such a bold offer,” they said.
“Ash seized it with the exact amount of gusto you’d expect from an artist of his repute.”
Mr Keating said the Bridge Art Project’s acknowledgment of Yorta Yorta heritage, and the committee’s artistic support of the Yorta Yorta people’s ongoing guardianship over Echuca Moama, was a credit to the project and the twin towns.
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