A series of cinema-style projectors will be installed in Perth city centre as part of an ambitious artwork designed to thrust the Fair City into the international spotlight.
Fife artist Elizabeth Ogilvie is working with culture bosses to transform a vast brick wall on Mill Street into an animated mural.
Together with artist Rob Page, she will take inspiration from the River Tay and use film of water and reflections.
The images will be beamed onto the wall, behind New Look, from dusk until 11pm from Sunday to Thursday, and until midnight at weekends.
A formal application for the “game changing” project has been lodged with planning chiefs. If approved, work could get under way before the summer.
The £30,000 plan involves setting up three laser projectors in the council-owned car park to project the images “well above head height”.
According to paperwork, the “design uses the very latest laser projection technology which reduces the running costs and maintenance requirements.”
The lamps should last for about 10 years.
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Culture Perth and Kinross launched a contest in 2018, offering designers the chance to lead the city’s biggest ever public art project.
Ms Ogilvie and Mr Page beat competition from 18 other entrants from as far afield as America, Russia and Australia with their project, entitled Meander.
Ms Ogilvie has exhibited throughout the world, with hit shows in London, Osaka, South Korea and the DCA in Dundee.
Mr Page is an artist and film-maker with more than 15 years’ experience of producing single and multi-screen videos for exhibitions.
City centre councillor Peter Barrett welcomed progress on the project. The leader of the local Liberal Democrat group said: “The installation will energise and invigorate the monolithic brick facades on Mill Street creating an attractive visual display connecting the theatre to the concert hall and Mill Street to the High Street.
“I think it will really capture people’s imagination.”
Tests were carried out using some of the artists’ previous work in January.
The project is being funded as part of the £12 million council-led City of Light scheme.
Last year, the wall was at the centre of a simmering feud between local artist Ian Cuthbert Imrie.
He installed three huge portraits of dead rock stars on the wall, but was ordered by the building’s owner to remove them.
When the paintings were eventually taken down in late November, Mr Imrie described the move as “cultural vandalism”.
