photo credit Chris Southwood / City of Sydney

Look up in the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Will Cooke’s latest mega-art piece. High in the sky 100 metres and ten storeys up on the precarious side of the former Top of the Town building, 227 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, and overlooking Kings Cross, is colourful mural installed as part of Sydney Council’s Art and About series.

Will names it “One Door Closes, Another Opens”.

It’s an ancient phrase coined by the Spanish writer, Cervantes, in his book Don Quixote, published in 1605.

Will Cooke is a Sydney artist who creates illusion-based paintings. They revel in the histories of industrial design, meditation, architecture and personal development. His minimal pattern-based and often geometric artworks reflect his observations of colour, shape and tone. He has participated in numerous exhibitions.

This mural is a reference to missed opportunities. He says “I see this work as a portal into a more positive and energised post-pandemic future.  Originally, I was going to tone it down, but in the end I decided to pick a palette that oozes positivity. You can’t look at fluoro yellow and not feel something, hopefully happy. It makes me feel good. I hope it gives other people the same feeling.”

It draws on the simplest of utilitarian objects, the common door. Not just any door though: his work is inspired by the progressive designs of modernist architect Jean Prouve (France, 1901-1984). Prouvre was described as “an important figure whose work blurred the line between the mathematical and the aesthetic, a French industrial designer, architect, and engineer”.

The mural comprises two doors painted in swathes of saturated colour opening and closing simultaneously seemingly in geometric perpetuity. It’s bigger than an Olympic swimming pool and can be seen from Taronga Zoo.

It will be on display until 9 August 2022.

To see Will in action on the job click on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdKIYrXk0qA

By Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions