ARTISTS from across the country have descended on Moore Street this week for the Rochester Mural Festival.
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The festival was inspired by Tasmania's International Mural Fest which has been held annually in the town of Sheffield since 2003.
The event is being driven by the Committee 4 Rochester's Graeme Robertson who established links with the Tasmanian festival, making Rochester the only town in Victoria to run a festival in conjunction with Sheffield.
"The idea is that we created a theme and invited artists from across Australia to put in their concepts based on that theme and we've had eight finalists who have come to Rochester for the week and we've established our mural park in the main street on the Bendigo side of town," he said.
The theme of the festival is "ride like the wind" inspired by Rochester local Sir Hubert Opperman.
"It links to the fact that Rochester was the birth town of a bloke called Sir Hubert Opperman who was one of Australia's first famous international cyclists," he said.
"He was born in Rochester and just at the end of the park where we're working there's a statue of him so we thought it was a fitting theme for our first festival."
Mr Robertson said the festival was part of the Committee 4 Rochester's plan to help make Rochester a place travelers stopped in rather than just passing through.
"Currently VicRoads tells us there's about 6000 vehicles a day drive through Rochester and many of those don’t stop, people on business or holiday makers on the way to other destinations," he said.
"One of our key aims is to try and get an environment here that will encourage people to stop and the mural festival is our biggest step so far.
"Rochester really does have a lot to offer once we can draw it to people's attention."
The artists began working at 8am on Sunday and will paint through until midday on Saturday when the $5000 first prize will be announced.