The chef-turned-artist behind Warrnambool’s most beloved murals

When Jimmi Buscombe and his wife Sheridan packed up their life in Brunswick and moved to Warrnambool 16 years ago, it was meant to be a six-month sea change. A break from the bustle. But after settling in, he says, “we kind of never chatted about it again.”

These days, Buscombe is one of the south west’s best-known mural artists, and has been for almost 10 years — though that path wasn’t always obvious. 

A trained artist who drifted into hospitality, he spent 22 years in kitchens. Art, for a long time, was a background presence.

It wasn’t until his daughter turned two that something shifted. 

“I painted a blackboard wall in our house and started doing illustrations on that, and that kind of got me back into my art,” he said.

One day a friend asked Buscombe if he could draw their dog on the blackboard, which led to a hobby of pet portrait commissions. Before long, he was squeezing in pet portraits at night while working full-time as a chef.

“I was working full-time, doing pet portraits... we didn’t have time to maintain the house.”

He told his wife he was going to give up the art. She told him to give up cheffing instead.

“That's what I love about regional Victoria. Paying $700-800 a week rent in Brunswick, where we were living, there's no way you would risk dropping your career for a passion because the financial strain's way too great,” Buscombe said.

“I think that down here, in Warrnambool, the opportunities that have come my way because it's regional are not opportunities I would have had in Melbourne.”

From pet portraits, Buscombe transitioned to painting birds and selling his works as prints.

Not long after, Buscombe said he came across an event called Beers and Ideas, a local placemaking pitch night hosted by Lovelock Studio, a Warrnambool graphic design business.

Placemaking pitch events are collaborative community gatherings where groups or individuals share their ideas in order to secure funding. 

Nervous about public speaking, he planned to attend the first session as an observer. But when someone pulled out, organiser Sinéad Murphy slotted him in.

“I was coming up with all the excuses as to why I couldn’t do it,” Buscombe laughed. “And then I just thought — why not?”

Buscombe faced the crowd, and pitched his idea for a mural stretching along the laneway off Koroit street, just outside Lovelock Studio. He won. 

The $750 prize to get started was backed dollar for dollar by the Warrnambool council and Art Gallery, bringing the total funding to $3000, giving Buscombe the chance to paint his first large-scale mural, “In Spirit”. 

From there, the work kept coming. Buscombe estimates he’s painted around 50 murals across regional Victoria, Melbourne, New South Wales, and even Los Angeles.

A 2018 viral video of Buscombe’s famous accidental wombat mural catapulted his career even further.

The chalk wombat that appeared under a Warrnambool bridge started as a practice piece for an anamorphic commission on Liebig Street. 

But the lifelike illusion sparked massive local and online interest, cementing his place on the public art map.

Still, Jimmi is the first to say his success has been built on countless little moments: people sharing advice, offering encouragement, opening doors.

Recently, Buscombe has had the opportunity to mentor young artists, spend time in schools, running collaborative mural projects and chatting to kids who wander past while he’s painting. 

“I think as artists, that’s really important,” he said. “Not trying to hide away your knowledge or your experience.”

He’s also managed to conquer his fear of heights — a necessity when your various canvases can get as high as a water tower.

And while he’s modest about it, there’s something quietly powerful in watching a bloke who once couldn’t stand on his own roof “without quivering” now bringing colour to people’s everyday lives.

“They say 90 percent of people don't use galleries, they don't visit galleries, and this is an opportunity to sort of get the 90 percent maybe a little more interested in art,” Buscombe said.

“The thing I love is being able to work creatively for a living. It’s not lost on me how fortunate I am.”

Image credit: Jimmi Buscombe