A GROUND-breaking new art project under the A338 Wessex Way flyover has gained a huge amount of support from residents and council members.

A team of 11 artists from Bournemouth and from across the UK have come together to produce nine-metre-high murals on the pillars supporting the motorway, making the area “a real come to spot”.

Started on the Monday September 9, the permanent outdoor gallery, conceived and driven by Bournemouth-based creative agency Paintshop Studio, is still taking shape, with artists coming to the Central Gardens on various days during a two-week period.

Rick Walker, Upside Project Curator and Co-founder of Paintshop Studio, said: “We have had so much support from the locals, people have been making us drinks, one lady baked a cake for us. The people who live here have really got behind it.”

Live Work Visit, a production company that champions people, businesses and campaigns within Bournemouth, has been documenting the project’s progress.

The company’s founder Stewart Gilbert said: “Out of the 300 or so people who have stopped and spoken to us about the project, we have only had two negative comments.”

The initiative, supported by Arts Council England, aims to showcase the array of street art talent, derived from graffiti, and how it can transform and reinvent spaces.

“No one really liked the space beforehand,” said Stewart.

“It was a dark and dingy, so turning that negative into a positive and bringing the community together as well is only going to help the area.”

Rick, an artist and designer himself, continued: “We’ve had a lot of people coming up to us saying that this is graffiti and will just promote further graffiti here and in other places in the town. We want to clarify that it is not graffiti, we are all professional artists in our own right.

“Some people that we have talked to are worried that the artwork will be graffitied over and ruined, but, after all the murals are completed, anything up to three metres will get a coating of anti-graffiti paint.

“Any graffiti that will be sprayed on it can be wiped off and the artwork will be left intact.”