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Until four years ago, stonemason Callum Hotham had never picked up a spray can. Now, he has become one of the most recognisable artists in his home town. The 29-year-old is changing the face of the motor racing city of Bathurst with a series of murals. In three years, the artworks have appeared on the walls of about 25 schools, businesses and sports clubs. The mural artist — who signs his work as CALUM — says imprinting the city with the faces of its community is a humbling experience. "I was a little kid here," Hotham says. 'Dead' city centre The face lift began when retired country real estate agent Peter Rogers decided to revive the city centre. "I'm trying to improve our CBD — I believe Bathurst is dead," Mr Rogers says. So he turned to a self-taught artist to make that happen. Inspired by a brick wall, 50 metres wide and 10m high, Hotham got to work. Three months later, Hotham transformed the side of the old department store, which once sold clothing to workers at the region's historic gold mines, into a reflection of the town's past. The work to transform the regional city's CBD has paid off. "Now we're getting people from all over Australia coming to look because it's actually on the Silo Art Trail," Mr Rogers says. "I commissioned it to try and set it off to get other people interested in doing murals in town." Self-taught artist Hotham's hyperrealistic portraiture is not the product of years of formal training. Locked down in Sydney during the COVID pandemic, he felt inspired by its street art. "It was just perfect timing to pick something up because I wasn't really doing too much else," he says. He progressed from experimenting with pens to paints to spray cans. "I just fell in love with painting with spray cans because there's such a technical side to it," he says. "It's not that you're just getting better at painting, you're also getting better at controlling the can, which I'm really fascinated by." He developed his style while he lived in Sydney and painted for businesses in the city's west — including at NRL star Nathan Cleary's brewery — before moving back home to Bathurst. Huge demand Hotham says it is now difficult to keep up with the demand for his work. "[Peter Rogers] really sparked the momentum … it made people realise what was possible for the town," he says. A particularly personal piece was cementing the personality of the "lovable" founder of the Bathurst City Colts, Bob Clancy, on the wall of his childhood cricket club. "He's such a lovely fella and everyone knows him for that … I wanted him to have a slight grin because that just gives off his character." South Bathurst butcher Kyle Keen had watched the murals bring the city back to life, and wanted to transform his own space. His business sits on the road that leads to the home of the Bathurst 1000, and he wanted to incorporate that identity into the artwork. Mr Keen hopes the murals will become a tourism drawcard. "Hopefully this — and all of Callum's other murals — will be something like that as well, where [people] can go around and check them out." Mr Keen says it also brightens the days of his regular customers. "The amount of people who come through the shop every day and say how lovely it looks, it's just so good," he says. Maryanne Jaques from the organisation ArtsOutWest says Hotham is an "exciting" artist, not only because he is from Bathurst, but also because he is self-taught. "If he was painting a couple of hundred years ago, he'd be the guy that you would hire to get your portrait painted if you were very rich," she says. Ms Jaques believes businesses can reap the benefits of advertising while providing public art for the community. "Every time he does a new work, I have seen so, so many comments on social media from locals who are celebrating that and championing someone from their community." Hotham says he is deeply grateful for the town's response to his work. "The amount of people the work impacts, it's so much bigger than me. I just hope people appreciate it and it makes their day better."
