Please tell us the beautiful love story behind your incredible mural, in detail please...
K: Well the mural is Matt’s (Mystic Rufio) piece. He is the mastermind behind the concept, I’ve just been Matt’s sidekick through it all. So I’ll leave this one for him to answer…
M: The mural depicts an epic adventure for two lovers. One side of the mural depicts a man in search of his sanity in the winding roads of the American desert. The other end a beautiful woman and along the path to meet her there’s lots of extraordinary things to see (vultures, eagles fighting, bones, cactus and a psychedelic cowboy riding a unicorn) Much like how my own path has delivered me many valleys and challenges through love and life. My journey to her has been ruthless and rough and love can be merciless at times. Just as the desert is ruthless, rough and merciless but it makes for an interesting and wild experience. I wanted to immortalise my girl and my muse Karalee the way I see her within our relationship. So naturally I painted her two stories high half naked blowing magic from her fingertips across the desert landscape. Karalee as the divine feminine creature she is sending her love across the harsh desert. Before I met her I had a sense that she was coming into my life. I could feel the magic building and even though my path was winding and full of craziness she was there to fill me with love and an understanding that it all needed to happen so I could find her. So that’s the story behind the Mo’s Clubhouse mural. Heaps of love and a whole lot of adventure.
Most people say you shouldn't work with your partner, did spending 3 solid weeks straight working on this mural together affect your relationship? In what way?
M: I feel collaboration is always a necessary component to make large-scale murals, real special. It was amazing to have Karalee to help me come up with the concept for the mural, choosing paint colours, painting prickles on cactus’s through to the last moments when we finished the piece. I found Karalee and I’s collaboration on this piece really rewarding and one of the many cool memories we have shared and more on the horizon.
K:Well we had never worked together creatively until this point so there was some chaotic moments. But I think we understand each other and love each other so much that 99% of the time we were just having so much fun! Everything that happened over the period of those three weeks helped to strengthen our understanding of each other. He was teaching me to paint, to create and play it felt like he was taking me into his world. And what we produced together was something magical and inspiring for many people. I also think we were able to keep our shit together because we balance each other out. Matt is the visionary and I’m more of the logistics expert haha! I help to keep him focussed and he helps to keep me wild.
In the quirky words of Matt and Karalee, describe what loves feels like...
Love feels like falling back into a field of daisy’s – like being seen and seeing another with an open heart and real eyes. Having a love that sees you as a living being, just as much as a tree or a flower. To have that someone who looks at you as a true living, breathing, evolving entity. A human but made of magical things. A friend of your heart beyond flesh and bone.
Would that be your definition of love?
We don’t think love can be defined at all – for to define it means to limit love. Like saying it is this but cant be that and love is infinite, limitless, it is all things, all encompassing with many different forms.
“Love give naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.” – Kahlil Gibran
What made you want to be apart of this 'Day of Love for Love' project?
Well who wouldn’t want to promote LOVE in any and every form? We have so many gay, lesbian and bisexual friends in same sex relationships, open relationships, heterosexual relationships and the constant in all of them is such a beautiful, real love and we need to acknowledge this by legalising same sex marriage in Australia. Love to us is not limited to gender; age, race or religion and when you release the boundaries then love can fully take flight. We are all about love so we are here to support the cause and spread the message.
So what's next, any exciting future plans and projects for ze artists that we should know about??
Well Matt is currently painting another mural at The Green Room at Southern Cross University in Tweed Heads, and I am teaching Yoga 4 days a week at Peace Yoga in Burleigh Heads. But it looks like 2018 will be a year of travel and adventure for us. We are hoping to head to Malaysia to work and paint and play then maybe India… We are just keeping our options open to see what comes our way. Hopefully keep spreading love and paint everywhere.
Peace & Love
Karalee and Matt xx