Local residents have slammed a group of ‘threatening religious dudes’ who spent the night painting over a provocative mural in support of marriage equality.
Sydney street artist Scott Marsh painted the mural ‘The Happy Ending’ on the way of the Botany View Hotel in Newtown in celebration of same sex marriage.
The mural took two days and he finished it on Wednesday afternoon.
But while people were inside the venue celebrating the victory of the ‘Yes’ vote in favour of same-sex marriage on Thursday, a group of men outside painted over it.
Iconic street artist Scott Marsh painted ‘The Happy Ending’ on the wall of Botany View Hotel
A group of ‘threatening religious dudes’ painted over the popular mural on Thursday night
‘They have threatened staff and patrons, these staunch religious eshays are here to cover up a ‘hateful’ painting while spreading hate and fear in the process. Try and get that logic,’ wrote Bryan Butterfield, who filmed the incident.
Butterfield is a promoter for the popular Newtown hotel, and explained to Channel Ten that the men had come into the venue and threatened staff and patrons before going around the corner and taking a roller and black paint to the mural.
During a filmed confrontation with local resident, the men aggressively defend their ‘right’ to ruin Marsh’s work.
‘Why are you painting over it?’ the woman asks, to which the man answers, ‘Because it’s offensive to the general public. It’s pornography mate.’
The woman asks off camera, ‘You know that it’s in Newtown, right?’ to which one of the man replies: ‘Ah yeah, OK, it’s still part of Australia….The vote was for gay marriage, not for this painting.’
A ‘religious dude’ took a long-handed roller and buckets of black paint to destroy the mural
She asks the men why they need to come all the way to Newtown to see the mural if it is offensive to their yes.
‘Do you live across the road?’ a woman asks one of the men, who is wearing a large blue and white striped shirt and reflective sneakers.
‘It’s Australia, I’m free to do what I want and if I do want to come here, I don’t want to see this,’ the man replies.
‘So don’t look at it!’ the woman suggests. Hotel patrons and locals flocked to express their disappointment but did not attempt to stop the men.
Three men ruined Scott Marsh’s mural in Newtown, branding it ‘offensive’ and ‘pornography’
Mr Marsh said that the response to the mural ‘has been 98 per cent positive’ and that the only negative responses had come from a few Christian groups.
Locals have high praise for the artwork and Mr Marsh, and subsequently slammed the men responsible for destroying it.
‘It goes against the spirit of Newtown which has a very vibrant, street art scene and it’s also against the hotel,’ local resident Nicholas McCallum told ABC.
He also said that the hotel was ‘more popular’ than it has ever been, and any calls to boycott the venue have had the opposite effect.
The painting prompted a brief social media backlash, where a man encouraged people to leave one-star reviews on the establishment’s Facebook page.
However, that plan backfired when ‘Yes’ supporters flocked to the page and left thousands of of five-star reviews that far outnumbered the negative ones
‘Fantastic mural! Love a business that has principles. Can’t wait to visit here again,’ Trevor McBride wrote.
The mural was first defaced at about 6pm on Thursday night with a few buckets of white paint
Mr Marsh first painted Tony Abbott in September, after he urged all Australians to ‘Vote No’
The mural was first defaced less than 12 hours after the announcement, when someone threw a bucket of white paint over Cardinal Pell’s face while the marriage equality celebrations were in full swing inside.
But the artist Mr Marsh took it in his stride, sarcastically praising the vandal responsible.
‘They had a lot of paint and a good throwing arm, as the mural is pretty tall,’ Marsh told Broadsheet. ‘It’s a great collaboration with the church, who have really over over-emphasised George Pell’s excitement at the historic ‘Yes’ vote by plastering his face with white paint. Well done.’
Following the first incident of vandalism, Mr Marsh told the Sydney Morning Herald that he planned to leave the defaced mural as it was.
‘I think it’s just a chapter in the life of the mural,’ he said. ‘When you’re making public art, the reaction is important, the reaction is needed.’
Mr Marsh is responsible for other iconic street art in the same area, including ‘St George’, ‘Politics As Usual’, ‘Casino Mike’ and ‘Tony Loves Tony’. There have already been calls for him to paint a new mural in the same iconic spot.
Iconic Newtown artist Scott Marsh also painted ‘Tony Loves Tony’ (left) and St George (right)
‘Politics As Usual’ was painted on the corner of corner of Wellington St and Regent St in April
Sydney Street artist Scott Marsh works on the mural of New South Wales premier Mike Baird