Derry city centre gets colourful spring makeover in time for St Patrick’s Day

This includes artwork placed on the side of the Richmond Centre by a team of spray artists from local company Peaball Creatives and will remain there for members of the public to enjoy in the weeks ahead, moving into the spring season.

Donal O’Doherty, Peaball Creatives, worked with the North West Carnival Initiative to deliver the artwork as part of their ‘Imagine That…’ programme which is designed to reimagine the city centre.

Donal explained that he and his team wanted to create something that would catch the eye, lift spirits, and transform a significant area within the city.

“You don’t really appreciate how big a difference a bit of colour makes until you see it all finished. Even when we were working on it we had a lot of people stopping on their way past saying how great it was and watching how the process worked,” said Donal.

“We know how tough a year it has been for everyone, so we’re just delighted to be involved in a project that adds an element of fun and brightness to our city centre and hopefully everyone who sees it.

“Denise Meenan, an excellent local graphic designer and owner of company Missprint, put together the artwork and we just ran with that, added our own spin to it and brought it to life at the Richmond Centre.”

Donal said that it was through the hard work of his talented team of artists that they were able to deliver the final piece.

“We’re very fortunate that we’ve had a lot of projects to work on recently and I feel grateful that we can bring four or five local, talented artists onboard at Peaball to help us out at a time that certainly hasn’t been the easiest for a lot of people in our industry,” explained Donal. “It’s through their hard work, their ideas, their diversity and their creativity that we’ve come up with what I feel is a really inviting and bright final product so it’s credit to all of our fantastic team.”

Donal said that he feels this type of artwork is perfect for the city centre. “As someone working in the industry for over 10 years I certainly feel and understand the power of street art and how it can put a smile on someone’s face and just elevate the surroundings. We live in a beautiful city that is a perfect walking destination and our aim was to create a piece of art that complimented that. We wanted bright colours and vibrancy that signalled a new season and what we hope is a new chapter moving away from COVID-19,” he concluded.

Jennifer Taylor, Richmond Centre Marketing Manager, added: “The Richmond Centre are delighted to contribute space to the Spring programme by providing some display space for the wonderful artwork created by Peaball staff. It has been a difficult and unprecedented year for retail and we are glad we can provide a canvas for such an uplifting and colourful project as the Spring programme, which hopefully is a bright start to a new and safe future for all our customers very soon.”

For more on the Council’s Spring programme visit www.derrystrabane.com/insideout