Eternal gay icon George Michael to be immortalised with nine-metre-high mural in his London hometown
George Michael. (Getty)
A permanent nine-metre-tall mural of gay icon and Wham! singer George Michael is coming to the London borough of Brent.
The painting will be installed in Kingsbury in September as as a powerful tribute to Michael, who tragically died on Christmas Day in 2016 at the age of 56.
Artist Dawn Mellor has been commissioned to create the artwork as part of the Brent Borough of Culture 2020 project, The Guardian reports.
Mellor has spent the last two decades creating powerful portraits of various famous figures, including Queen Elizabeth II, Karl Lagerfeld and Condoleezza Rice.
They were also behind important artworks of queer icons such as Madonna and Judy Garland.
The George Michael mural will celebrate the life of the acclaimed singer-songwriter, who grew up in Brent.
The area was recently named the Borough of Culture and was granted additional funding for arts projects as part of the initiative.
The borough of Brent will now press ahead with 23 new commissions and projects that explore the area’s history and culture, with artistic director Lois Stonock overseeing.
Speaking about the raft of commissions, Stonock said: “We’ve created the Brent Biennial as a platform for the visual arts in Brent that can develop over the coming years and as one of the legacies of Brent 2020,” according to Art Review.
“Brent’s creativity lies in its communities, in the streets and its civic spaces. We see the Biennial as an opportunity to shine a light on the rich stories, ideas and voices that reside in the borough and also a unique context for artists outside of the borough to work in.”
The new mural of George Michael is not the first to commemorate the late singer – a painting unveiled in Australia in 2017 which depicted him as Jesus stoked controversy in the country.
The mural was later covered in black paint by vandals following the country’s same-sex marriage vote in 2017.
But it was restored to its former glory after various well-wishers scrawled messages of love and support over the black paint, powerfully declaring that love had already won.
