World renowned street artist Christian Fenn paints huge mural on Cleveleys seafront inspired by 'The Sea Swallow' fairytale childrens book

Christian finished off the giant work of art over the August bank holiday weekend – with some help from the local community.

The landmark mural was inspired by ‘The Sea Swallow’ a fairytale book written by Gareth Thompson.

The story is about a girl and her magical shell ‘Mary’s Shell’ and her fight against a sea Ogre who creates a storm to claim the land to the sea. It’s animated with the huge pieces of public art on the seafront and beach, now brought to life with this stunning design.

The mural was celebrated with a fun day, held at Jubilee Gardens, on Aug 26, where people also had the chance to bring their own butterflies to life within the piece.

Christian launched his Butterfly Effected project last year at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. The project supports mental health and wellbeing using art as a vehicle to spread hope, positivity & inspiration.

He told Blackpool Gazette: “If someone is down on their luck and they see the butterfly, they can scan the QR code it will remind them of a more positive time when they were doing well.

It’s for anyone. Butterflies have many meanings, some of which: three stages in time - caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. They never never fly in a straight line they move up and down, sort of like a life path.

For others they represent spirituality, passed loved ones and freedom."

Care for Cleveleys is the volunteer arm of Cleveleys Town Centre Group, which was recently awarded £60k by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

This was the first piece of work to be commissioned with the funding.

Jane Littlewood is Chair of Care for Cleveleys and explains “everything we do is about building a strong community around the shared aim of improving our town. Seca One Art – otherwise known as Christian Fenn – is local and really invested in both the area and the concept of partnership working and community. It’s been a fantastic experience working with him and watching the piece come to life, complete with a flutter of butterflies, painted and named by individuals at the Fun Day.”

The fence that the piece is painted on surrounds the compound for the £40m Wyre Beach Management Project, commissioned by Wyre Council with Environment Agency funding. Balfour Beatty is the main contractor and with work ongoing for another couple of years, they saw the opportunity to both brighten the park up and bring the Sea Swallow to life.

Balfour Beatty have generously covered the cost of a surface coating to protect the artwork. The plan is that when the compound is demobilised and the park remodelled, a new home will be found for the boards containing the artwork.