A GIANT mural will feature hidden references to the local area when it’s painted at the beginning of May.

Artists Martin McGuiness and Fraser Gray will create the largest mural yet for Dundee street art project Open/Close on a gable-end in Cardean Street in the city’s Stobswell.

Working to a design informed by community workshops, McGuiness and Gray’s mural of a close stairwell reflects the dominant form of housing in the area, originally built by Dundee’s jute barons for their mill workers.

The mural’s bright colour palette was inspired by elements of the Stobswell area such as building materials, shop fronts and local closes. Other references include a view of Baxter Park Pavilion and a swan sitting on an acorn – a nod to the Stobsmuir Ponds, known as the “Swannie Ponds”.

Open/Close’s biggest mural to date is a vast depiction of a warrior woman in the city’s Tay Street Lane by Fife fine artist Kirsty Whiten and London print artist Annie Nicholson.

McGuiness and Gray’s stairwell will join around 20 works commissioned by Open/Close in the area as part of their Stobswell art trail, with a similar number featuring in doorways and alleys in the centre of Dundee.

Organiser Russell Pepper says Open/Close have ambitious plan for the future.

“We want to develop a series of murals across the city linking cultural attractions to communities,” he says. “I can see at least two or three local artists who’ve done doors for us before now being ready to do bigger murals. As well as giving opportunities to local artists, the pieces are not anywhere that people might feel excluded from.”

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