The 28-metre high woman gracing the nine-storey building at the Paris End of Collins Street - L'Inconnue De La Rue - is coming down after six months. But a new mural of her, painted by Melbourne artist Rone, has appeared on another building on Little Collins Street. This time she's just 12 metres high but she's the centrepiece of the artist's first solo exhibition here for two years.
The abandoned building at the base of Nauru House is slated for demolition and after some inquiries and "talking his way in", Rone has convinced the owners to let him take over the space for a three-week exhibition, Lumen.
The bland interior has been transformed into a crypt-like gallery space for his large-scale canvas works, all featuring the now-famous girl, model Teresa Oman, illuminated by local lighting designer John McKissock.
"It was an office with an ugly cork roof and florescent lighting, but once we rigged up this lighting over the top and painted the walls dark charcoal, it looks amazing," says Rone.
The former street artist would once spend his nights clandestinely pasting up his large-scale works of women's faces under cover of darkness but, these days, all his work is "above board", his pieces hanging in the National Gallery of Australia and sought after by collectors worldwide.
"It's not easy getting away with things on that scale illegally and being above board actually gives me a lot more opportunities," he says. "I can spend all day enjoying myself painting in the sun."
The works on the canvases - which vary from one-metre to three metres - are all, of course, permanent, but the mural on the building's ventilation tower will only last til the 'dozers move in.
"But I knew that before I started, like with the large one at 80 Collins Street. It's sad but ... I think it'd be more painful if it was there in 10 years and I really didn't like it. It's been there for six months and I can already see things I can do better," he says.
"There's not a single thing I've painted that five years later I still 100 per cent love. It's such a large work - imagine having something nine storeys tall, with your name on it, in the middle of the city. I still love it a the moment, but I know I'll be over it soon."
The former graphic artist's work was "discovered" in 2002 by a skateboard company who hired him after seeing his paste-ups at local skate park.
"They gave me a job on the back of that when I was studying and that was an awesome job for me, doing T-shirt graphics for skateboard companies and surf companies. The street art was just something I did on the side."
Now the 34 year old is arguably one of our best-known artists - several of his murals are currently appearing at NGV as part of The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk and he was one of the artists selected to paint one of this year's Art Trams as part of the Melbourne Festival. In the past three years, Rone has exhibited in London, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Melbourne and Hong Kong.
"I'm not a street artist now, I'm more of a 'muralist'," he says. "My background was street art but I guess what I do now is beyond that I guess," he modestly understates.
"There was no plan but somehow I've ended up with a really good life."
Lumen opens on Friday, October 24 at 109 Little Collins Street at 6pm.
