Australian painter Kevin Charles ‘Pro’ Hart got his nickname from his natural inventiveness. Growing up on a sheep farm in rural NSW, before spending a stint in the mines, Pro Hart was dubbed ‘The Professor’ due to his virtuoso skill at tinkering and dreaming up new methods of working.

The artist may be an unconventional match for Stainmaster, but together they created one of the most beloved Australian ad campaigns of the 1990s. To sell the company’s stain-resistant carpet and flooring, Hart uses food, wine and condiments to create a large-scale mural of a dragonfly – which is then efficiently erased by his cleaner.

Along with the cleaner’s famous cry of ‘Oh, Mr Hart!’, the ad showcases Hart’s renowned skill at using varied materials, and the innovative ‘cannon painting’ technique that gives his work its splatter style. Known for his renderings of Australia’s natural landscapes, particularly the outback, this television ad was a successful way of bringing Hart’s gonzo sensibility into the domestic space.

This particular ad is a follow-up to the original collaboration between Hart and Stainmaster in 1990, which made the ‘Carpet Dragonfly’ legendary. Invista, the company behind the Stainmaster brand, relaunched the campaign in 2010 with Hart’s nine-year-old grandson, Harry.