Take a stroll through Perth city centre and you will notice how its once-barren brick walls are trying to tell you something.
Or should that be: Sell you something?
Culture chiefs recently took the wraps off the city’s biggest public artwork, a huge animated mural with black-and-white images of the River Tay.
Just days earlier, Instagram star Kelsey Montague completed her piece on a nearby building. The unassuming three-storey block was transformed with a pair of colourful, floral wings.
And there are plans for even more, such as a huge portrait of Olympian and former Perth Grammar School PE teacher Eilidh Doyle on Caledonian Road.
Meanwhile, local artist Ian Cuthbert Imrie – who last year caused a stir with his unauthorised portraits of dead rock stars – has installed some new paintings in a darkened corner of Mill Street.
The pictures could yet spark a new row, with council plans already signed off to convert that bin storage area into a place for outdoor gatherings and cinema screenings.
This transformation is all part of the local authority’s vision for Mill Street, as a bustling “cultural quarter”.
The ambitious project, announced four years ago, is aimed at reviving an area which had become an unattractive trades’ entrance for shops on the High Street.
It’s an admirable project, and even the most hard-hearted cynic would have to admit that Mill Street looks much better than it did a few years ago.
Only time will tell if these new commisioned artworks – each installed at a cost to the taxpayer of several thousand pounds – will bring new life to the thoroughfare, and make it a more inviting place for visitors.
But this is no haunted baseball field. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come.
Street art has transformed once-rundown sections of cities like Berlin, Paris and Glasgow. But in most cases, good street art has been allowed to grow organically in places which are already cool cultural hang-outs.
At the moment, the new art installation Meander, projecting moving images of the Tay onto a vast brick wall canvas, is playing to a largely empty car park.
There’s nothing stopping Mill Street from becoming a great asset to the city, and a lively place to hang out after dark.
But it’s rows of pay-and-display parking zones and back ends of shops that close at tea-time, doesn’t make it a natural rendezvous spot. There needs to be more to lure people into the area at night, such as food stalls or attractive seating.
The current plans for the corner that has so far been claimed by Mr Imrie could go some way to finally making Mill Street happen.
