Back home: Benalla Street Art debutant Minna Leunig grew up in Strathbogie Shire.
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Growing up on Taungurung Country in the Strathbogie Ranges was a potent beginning — full of life, death and wild natural beauty.
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For Minna Leunig, it was a place that somehow felt separated from everywhere — a world all of its own.
“It was sublimely unfashionable. Simply no need for much more than my olive green T-shirt, jeans, heavy-duty polar fleece and scuffed Rossi boots,” Minna said.
“I’ll never forget the shock I felt at the beginning of puberty when I was visited by two friends from Melbourne. They sported voluminous quiffs, colossal hoop earrings, graphic tees and cropped denim jackets.
“Their change in presentation came completely out of the blue, and it all felt rather edgy and unnerving.
“‘I better get my act together’, I thought to myself worriedly.
“My concern was later solidified when my sense of personal style was kindly described by my comrades as ‘plain’.”
Talented: The mural on the 8 Sisters Cafe and Grill in Bendigo was created by Minna Leunig.
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Minna said at the time, it all felt a bit dreadful
“What teenager wants to feel like the plain Jane?” she said.
“But in hindsight, I’m incredibly grateful to have grown up largely free from the pressures of urban life.”
She also said she was grateful for her parents’ ‘Amish’ tendencies.
“Growing up in the hills and having been home-schooled for seven years meant I was reasonably sheltered for the majority of my childhood and teenage years from the influences of advertising, television and pop culture — leaving my mind free to wander,” she said.
“During these years, I spent countless hours wandering the bush on foot and on horseback, familiarising myself with the plants and animals of Taungurung country — learning the dips in the land, wombat holes, peppermint gums and orchid colonies like one might a distinctive neighbourhood.
“The summers were hot, that searing dry heat — and ushered in the vibrational ring of cicadas, brown snakes on the veranda, koalas grunting in the tops of manna gums, yellow grass prickling underfoot and cooling off in muddy waters.
“Winters transformed the land entirely — and brought about vivid greenery, glittering frosts, the smell of woodsmoke, and morning fog so thick that the paddocks, usually visible from the windows, became completely obscured behind a blanket of white.
“It was during these years I developed a profound love and respect for the Australian environment and its creatures, as well as an interest in mark making — drawing and painting.
“Fifteen years on, my interest in both these realms remains strong.
“I’ve continued mark making — painting on canvas, as well as on walls, to create large-scale murals — and continue to draw inspiration from my early experience growing up on Taungurung country.
“As well as from the unique beauty and feeling across a vast array of native Australian landscapes,” she said.
“All the way from the glimmering desert landscapes of the red centre to the tangled mangroves and thick rainforests of Cape York.
“I represent the animals I paint as strong and distinctive personalities in a world that so often commodifies, devalues or destroys them.
“I aim to spark a sense of appreciation for the natural world during a time in which fragile ecosystems need our care and protection the most.
“One such ecosystem lies close, just 45 minutes from Benalla — and has been under threat for years.”
Minna has been involved in the Save our Strathbogie Forest group and is keen for it to achieve its goals, including saving the endangered greater glider.
“To be back on home country now painting as part of the Benalla Street Art Festival feels like a special return,” she said.
“Despite having lived in other places for the last 15 years, nowhere feels so much like home as this part of the world.
“I’m grateful for every return, as well as for every chance to pay homage through a paintbrush to the forces that shaped me, the creatures and plants of this land — looming forever large in my consciousness.
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