Rainbow Square: "The community are starting to have pride in where they live"

Artist behind Gloucester's 'Rainbow Square' tells us street colour and art are helping communities unite

Local artist Tash Frootko stands in front of one of the newly painted murals that form the 'Rainbow Square'
Author: Ana Da SilvaPublished 8th Jun 2022
Last updated 8th Jun 2022

If you’re from Gloucester you might have seen how throughout the month of May an entire area of the city centre has been transformed.

Adjacent to Nettleton Road, which received a makeover back in 2018, houses on St Kilda Parade and Station Road are now popping with colour and displaying two huge murals created by artists from Bristol and London.

Nettleton Road, initially painted by Tash in 2018, also got a fresh coat of paint this May

It's all the creation of local artist and landlady, Tash Frootko, who's well-known to Gloucester for sprucing up streets in all the colours of the rainbow, with the help and support of residents.

She met up with Greatest Hits Radio at the now dubbed 'Rainbow Square' to talk about this latest project:

"We painted for the whole month of May and were very fortunate to have amazing weather, and we managed to paint 25 houses and two murals, and it created such a positive buzz in the city."

"Choosing mural artists and allowing them to have 8x8 meter canvases, so they can show off their portfolio of work, is an amazing thing.

"I chose two female artists for this project, one lady called Zoe Power who's from Bristol and another artist called Eloisa Henderson-Figueroa who's from London, who specialise in colours and shapes, so they were ideal artists for me."

St Kilda Parade

These aren’t the only streets to have gotten a rainbow makeover in Gloucester over the years.

The artist convinced residents in St Mark Street to let her get creative in 2020 when she decorated 40 houses - the place has since been unofficially named the 'Rainbow Street'.

But she tells us these makeovers do more than just make streets prettier…

"There's been an absolute decrease in anti-social behaviour, littering and fly-tipping almost vanishes, and the community are uniting.

St Mark Street in Gloucester, also known as 'Rainbow Street'

"That is the key part of the project, to get the community on board and for the community to start having pride in where they live."

So what do people in Gloucester think about it all?

Watch the full video report below to hear what some locals told us, and to find out about Tash's next project.

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