A West Auckland born Māori artist, Shannon Lee Howes (Ngāti Kahungunu), was acknowledged by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson himself for a mural he painted in a Melbourne gym.
The Rock shared a photo of the mural, which featured himself and other prominent sporting figures, with his 48.1 million Instagram followers, referring to Howes work as a “bad ass massive gym mural”. The photo has already accumulated over 400,000 likes.
The owner of the Melbourne gym had seen Howes' work and asked him to paint the mural. He was so pleased with the result, he asked the 29-year-old to create a second mural featuring Marvel characters, such as spiderman, wolverine, superman and the hulk, in another gym he owns.
As expected, since The Rock shared the picture of Howes work, he has gained opportunities to produce more works of art.