VISIBLE INVISIBLE

Revealed during the announcement was the 44m x 20m work by Australian contemporary creative Reko Rennie. Visible Invisible forms the foundation of the new museum, encasing the concrete base of the building. The mural will be visible in its entirety for a short period of time prior to the new museum being constructed on top of it.

Reko Rennie has realised Visible Invisible on a site adjacent to the Lyon Housemuseum using more than 600L of Dulux weathershield paint, marking his largest single painting to date. “This is indeed the most ambitious and challenging work I have ever created in terms of the scale and time frame,” Rennie claims.

The mural brings together iconography drawn from the artist’s own Aboriginal Kamilaroi heritage with elements of graffiti. “This work turns the traditional role of camouflage on its head, using it to amplify, rather than conceal my identity, and to stake my claim to a luminous, commanding form of cultural visibility.”

“We wanted to rethink the foundation laying for the new museum,” Architect Corbett Lyon said. “I was struck by the idea of painting a large image over the whole of the foundation, and then progressively covering it up; a bit like the Lost Leonardo in Florence. Artist Reko Rennie was very enthusiastic and has produced a truly spectacular work. The title - Visible Invisible - perfectly captures the idea.”

Upon the museum’s opening in 2018, a portion of the artwork will remain visible to hint at the colossal image lying beneath.