http://youtu.be/JR04-I7zur0
A giant, blinking set of eyes is the latest public art project to grace the south city neighborhood of Carondelet.
The 100 by 30 foot stencil is painted on a corrugated, street-facing wall owned by Southern Metals, at the corner of South Broadway and Holly Hills Avenue.
The mural is the work of Kirkwood street artist Peat Wollaeger, aka Eyez, aka stenSOUL.
Tom Russell of the Carondelet Housing Corporation says the mural is part of a plan to transform a 3-mile stretch of South Broadway—an area known for both heavy industry and historic storefronts.
“The importance of public art in communities is finally being recognized,” said Purcell, “if you drive on Manchester on Kingshighway there’s public art. So, we did a map, we showed where the public art will be in the middle, the north, and the south end and then we’d formed a public arts committee in the neighborhood.”
The project is the third in a series of 10 the community plans to commission, collectively called Murals on Broadway.
Inspired by the young face of Wollaeger’s son, the piece is giant orange, red and yellow face, bearing Wollaeger’s trademark eyes…except these actually blink as you drive by (a feature made possible by the corrugated ridges of the wall)
“I always wanted to create an animated stencil,” says Wollaeger.
“For me personally, or even for Carondelet, I think it’s amazing that they’re going to put up 10 murals. I don’t think a lot of people realize the power of that, you know, putting up ten pieces of large art in a neighborhood, and how that will change it.”
The project is commissioned through the non-profit Carondelet Housing Corporation.
Follow Adam Allington on Twitter: @aallington
