1982 - present

Joel Moore, better known as ‘Mulga’, grew up in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire but often visited Bondi to attend family events with his uncle who lived there. His connection to Bondi really took off after starting his art career and painted his first mural on the Bondi Beach Sea Wall. He has gone on to paint many murals on the Bondi Beach Sea Wall and in surrounding areas. Early on in his career, he sold T-shirts and other products at the Bondi Markets. He credits Bondi as being a big part of his decision to leave his office job to become a “full-time art dude”.

Mulga’s widely esteemed murals are located in both private and public locations throughout Australia. He painted his first mural on the Bondi Beach Sea Wall in 2012. “I had to take a couple of days off work to paint it,” he says, “and MTV actually filmed me and interviewed me while I was painting it, for a video they were making with Adidas and Footlocker – awesome! I seemed to be a professional mural artist, but I had no idea what I was doing.”

Since then, he’s painted the sea wall seven times and been commissioned to paint a large ‘BONDI’ sign, featuring flying dolphins, beside the Wally Weekes Bathing Pool at North Bondi. “When I painted the first mural, in 2012,” he says, “I was working in the financial-planning industry and wanted to make art my full-time job. I thought that painting a mural in public was a great way to introduce my art to the world, and when I found out that anyone could apply to paint on the sea wall, ‘it was on like Donkey Kong’. I painted a gorilla character holding an ice cream and went on Instagram to ask people for ideas for the speech bubble. The winning entry was ‘Sweet summer stomach filler. This is an ice cream, and I’m a gorilla.’ I’ve always liked to paint a new mural whenever one’s been painted over. I think it’s such a great spot to show your art to so many people from all over the world.”