By Deena Coster — Taranaki Daily News, October 30, 2025.
Mural artist Michael Montgomerie usually doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
“I see a big wall and I think, I could do something with that”.
“The mural artist’s work in his home town of Waitara has been in hot demand, with his distinctive style starting to make quite an impression around the town”.
Waitara born and raised, the air brush artist often spends his work day relief teaching at schools, but much of his free time is dedicated to his mural projects, a passion he has been pursuing for 40 years.
His latest work along the side of a Dowding Lane building just off the main street, which features his signature use of native flora and fauna, as well as a vivid colour palette, is almost complete, thanks to a $29,500 grant from Waitara Community Board’s discretionary fund.
The mural is the latest in a string of works Montgomerie has done around Waitara. Starting with a makeover of the toilet block at Otupaiia Marine Park, his work also graces the walls of the Ngāti Rāhiri office in Queen St, and the side of the town’s library, by the kaumātua flats owned by the hapū.
He has other works dotted around the town too, including a mural on West Quay, which won him a bronze medal at this year’s New Zealand Sign and Display Awards.
Montgomerie has also been selected as the preferred artist to complete the first stage of an extensive mural, which will be painted along the Waitara river flood protection wall.
The project has been championed by the community board but is heavily dependent on more funding being secured before it can start. The design he submitted for the wall was meant to reflect the “whakapapa of the town”. Montgomerie said it would reference the influence of iwi and hapū in Waitara, the town’s freezing works legacy and its sporting heroes, among a host of other things. “It’s a massive job.”
Montgomerie said it had been an enjoyable experience being in such a central location in Waitara while he worked on the Dowding Lane project, as people often stopped by for a chat. “Pretty much everyone I speak to says they love the colours.”
While his art is on show in cities like California, London, Dubai and Gold Coast, the ability to showcase it in the place where he grew up was a special feeling.
“I put my heart and soul into it as it’s just not another mural – it’s so much more than that.”
