Instead of an allegory for the primordial struggle between mammals and reptiles (below), now this lizardman is inoffensively making a pizza.

THE maid being manhandled in a Maylands mural has been replaced by a pizza.

Local resident June Winsome Smith had complained one of the scenes on a new mural at Rifo’s cafe was inspired by the 1500s sculpture Abduction of a Sabine Women, a reference to one of Rome’s founding myths when Roman men captured a neighbouring city’s women to make their wives (“A decent lick of paint,” Voice, January 8, 2022).

Artist Ill Withers said there was no intentional reference to the event and the sculpture had been inadvertently chosen as one of many reference images. 

He said he didn’t want even one person to feel uncomfortable about the image since it’s in a public place and changed it the first day he found out about Ms Winsome Smith’s complaint.

“We avoided any heavy subject matter this time,” he reported, “just went with pizza.”

by DAVID BELL