Peri St John-Ives Sets Sean Right On Katikati’s Local Murals

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Anzac weekend, I took a sojourn up the country to the Coromandel.

[00:00:05]I got past Fatty Young actually and on Monday I drove back down and visited some friends in Tauranga.

[00:00:12]And to drive from the Coromandel to Tauranga one passes through a number of small relatively obscure New Zealand towns. One of them being Katikati.

[00:00:23]And as I was driving with my traveling companion Anzac Monday I saw a sign that said Katikati mural town of New Zealand.

[00:00:34]And I often look at town signs, the character of Otorohanga, the brilliant branding of Bulls. In the Manawatu and I laugh and I observe and like we all do when we're traveling, we look for you know, we look for the town's theme and given that it said it was the mural town of New Zealand.

[00:00:59]I was looking for murals in Katikati as I drove through on State Highway 2.

[00:01:05]And maybe I don't know, I was having an off day. I couldn't see I think I saw something that could have been a mural in the right light if I squinted at it.

[00:01:13]And I came back I made Katikati the hotspot with the location and I say it's selling us a bill of goods on on the murals.

[00:01:23]I should have kept my mouth shut because suddenly I'm getting emails and calls from people including our next guest Perry Saint John Ives is the Katikati open air art gallery manager and she wrote me a bloody stiff letter actually.

[00:01:39]And said we want to put the record straight so here she is joining me on the show.

[00:01:44]Perry first I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really really extremely sorry.

[00:01:49]Welcome to the platform.

[00:01:53]Welcome to the platform. Are you the mural capital of New Zealand?

[00:01:59]Absolutely. We've got the largest community owned collection in New Zealand which has 92 pieces of art out in our community.

[00:02:09]Okay, now Sorry. My idea of mural is something painted on a wall. I'll be honest generally not very well.

[00:02:18]Um Yeah.

[00:02:20]Well, I think [laughter] that it's to stop and look.

[00:02:27]Am I right in saying on State Highway 2 that there aren't really many readily apparent murals in Katikati?

[00:02:35]No, they're there. Definitely there. You drove one past one in fact that is my favorite and it's quite a large piece.

[00:02:46]It was about ostriches that used to run loose down the main street in 1897. So it's it's there but I Sean it's not your fault. You were driving. You were probably concentrating on the road. Yeah. Yeah, I was.

[00:03:02]>> [laughter] >> You're being very kind to me.

[00:03:04]>> need to be doing. Okay. So how do you get Well, you say outdoor art Are an outdoor and murals the same thing or is it not just murals that you've got at Katikati?

[00:03:17]>> definitely they're definitely sculptures as well. We've got one particular sculpture that's very famous in our community called Barry.

[00:03:26]And the community is so passionate about him that when he's missing they get very upset and very vocal.

[00:03:35]>> this but what is Barry?

[00:03:38]Oh, Barry's just a fit Duncan Kiwi bloke reading his newspaper. Ah.

[00:03:43]>> And he got driven into about a year ago and the community came in every single day demanding him back for a year. Yeah. He's back.

[00:03:55]>> Yeah.

[00:03:55]>> He's back reading his paper. So I just have to maybe stop and smell the roses and look at the murals next time I'm going through Katikati. It's not a cuz I kind of blinked and I missed it, didn't I?

[00:04:09]You you well, yeah, come and see me. We can go for a coffee and some cake and I'll take you on a little tour and I think that you'll be suitably amazed at what Katikati's got to offer.