Muralist turns to US Midwest in latest work

THE WORLD IS HIS CANVAS Australian artist Guido van Helten in front of the grain elevator and silos where he is painting a large mural. —AP

MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA — High atop a massive grain elevator in the middle of this US Midwestern city, Australian artist Guido van Helten swipes a concrete wall with a brush that looks more appropriate for painting a fence than creating a monumental mural.

As he stands in a boom lift 23 meters (75 feet) off the ground, van Helten is focused on his work, covering a structure that stretches over most of a city block.

“When you use these old structures to kinda share stories and use them as a vehicle to carry an image of identity, it becomes part of the landscape,” he said.

The work on the former Union Silos is van Helten’s latest effort to paint murals on a gigantic scale, with earlier projects on structures ranging from a dam in Australia to part of a former cooling tower at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.

Although he has created murals throughout the world, grain silos in the US Midwest have been among his most frequent sites.

“I do enjoy the opportunity to uncover stories that are often kinda considered out of the way or flyover communities,” said the 38-year-old Brisbane native.

Van Helten first meets with residents to learn about a community and then spends months transforming what is usually the largest structure in a small town.

The Minot elevator and silos were built in the 1950s and were an economic center for years before they ceased operations around the early 1990s —AP