By Laveena Francis

Once just another two storey grey wall in Chapeltown, this space now celebrates the vibrant history of Leeds West Indian Carnival in the form of a larger than life mural, ‘Reflection of Carnival’.

Featuring ‘Ole Mas’ characters from Midnight Robbers, fancy Indian masqueraders and bele dancers find their place alongside carnival costumes on the 42ft by 30 ft wall. This mural was the ‘most daunting task’ of visual artist and costume designer Rhian Kempadoo-Millar’s professional life, who, prior to this project, had never painted anything larger than 6m sq.

Many residents and frequent passersby tend to be taken aback for at least a few seconds while admiring the beauty of the piece, which seems to have suddenly popped out of nowhere.

Millar, who holds 25 years of experience in designing costumes for the annual carnival, applied to paint the artwork after encouragement from a friend.

“I was sent the mural proposal by a friend who suggested I should apply. Initially, I was too intimidated to apply due to the scale and machinery. But a week before the deadline I decided I had nothing to lose and put together a proposal & some sketches,” said the artist.

The mural also boasts some of the costumes designed by current Leeds designers, such as Anonymas, Hughbon Condor, A Team, Unity Arts and RJC Dance.

The city witnessed a launch party to celebrate the official unveiling of the mural at the Leeds West Indian Centre on Saturday, October 28th. 

From Daunting Challenge to Vibrant Triumph

Despite passing by that wall multiple times, Millar had never really noticed it. “It was grey and a great spot for a mural,” she chimed.

Every morning, Millar used to reach the site at around 8am and the team of supporting artists -Alan Pergusey, Reggie Challenger and Ky James- would join at 10 am. The team would usually finish around 6pm.

“I used to be the first person to reach the venue. It was nice to have a couple of hours by myself to prepare for the day. The days were long as it took time to set up the area, cherry picker and paints. We would work on a specific part of the mural. Two of us on the cherry picker and two on the ground. It took 2.5 weeks to paint with some days off due to the rain. The set up could take 1.5 hour then it would start to rain, and we’d have to pack everything away. It used to be all wet and soggy,” she explained, citing the weather as the biggest challenge.

The costume designer emphasized that she lucked out with supporting artists Pergusey and Challenger. They had larger scale work experience and provided great advice on ways to scale up, grid, project elements and which paints to use. James, who joined them on this project, was a recent art graduate.

“We all have very different styles, but I think that complimented the design. Some precision, some illustrative and some loose movement. It was amazing to have this knowledge to ask questions and get advice. Maybe my style of working is quite free and impulsive so I imagine that could be frustrating. But we had a lot of fun and I tried to let each of us express our creative style,” she said smiling.

Painting at that height can be extremely overwhelming, aside from physically exhausting, but “you know it has to be delivered so you just get up, wrap up and get on.”

During the final day, when the rain stopped for the last two hours and sun was coming down, it reflected the light as she painted all of the gold and silver highlights. “We were all tired and wet but it was beautiful.”

Carnival Traditions: Remixed

Millar specifically wanted to have a mix of traditional and contemporary carnival themes portrayed in the mural. This was meant to emphasize the importance of knowing the heritage and roots of carnival, to stay connected to its origins. It was through her costume designs that she had always studied and referred to Ole Mas – especially with young people. She wanted the mural to have the same idea of roots, vines, development and growth into something new.

“Carnival is in my blood so I think it’s just a language that comes naturally to express different emotions, times or life, experiences positive and negative. The UK carnival has its own identity, but we are always connected to the Caribbean. Many times, I start painting something which is unrelated to carnival such as ‘We Drowning Street’ about the corruption of the government and ‘Partygate’ during the Covid Crisis. The subjects will stay to take on a carnival character form such as the politicians morphing into suited Blue Devils.”

According to Millar, painting is a different form of expression than costume and it allows her to express more personal issues. After losing her father to suicide when she was 10, painting has been like therapy to her, a way to process the trauma. She painted a piece with the Midnight Robber depicting the loss of childhood under his cloak of death. “It was cathartic,” said the guest artist at Bradford Industrial Museum. She is also working on a textiles project looking at the hidden histories and the woven collections.

Her inspiring advice to young artists is to “follow your passions. Even if they seem disconnected and unrelated. If we stay in our vein of gold, it’s amazing how things start to entwine together as time goes by. It’s about resilience and just doing your thing your way, tenacity pays off.”