Submergence by Tom Ansell in Busselton

Submergence, a 3.5m x 17m wide feature piece for my old school, Busselton Primary School, is a fusion of the school’s motto and values designed as a visual narrative that reflects an imagined scene of the Busselton Jetty. This piece was commissioned by Busselton Primary School and the P&C committee in 2022, following an extensive and detailed consultation process. The mural itself took a considerable time to complete, approximately 2.5 months of painting. The work itself features richly detailed, nuanced brushwork, a variety of different implied and actual textures with the old, porous brick influencing the gnarled suggestion of reef-forms and the smoother colourbond elements a more sleek, refined finish. Like all of my work, I aspired for this piece to match that of a fine-art studio level painting, being realistic in terms of aesthetics, but also whimsical and engaging for the primary audience – the students. This piece offers not just a feature wall, but a way for the students to better connect with the values they aspire in their primary education, communicating and hopefully reinforcing this in a different way.