CONCEPT ARTWORK / MURAL STORY
Evening Sky Mural
Jessie Brummy Cook Sky Tribute
This concept design represents a collaborative project between
Arts Gloucester, MidTown Gallery and Biripi artist Michael Scarrott.
The proposed public mural has received strong support from the Gloucester community, local businesses, community organisations and the Gloucester Worimi First People's Aboriginal Corporation.
In daylight, the mural reads as an evening sky tribute, with the community gathered beneath the stars and the landscape held in a quieter painted form.
After dark, the photoluminescent layer begins to glow, bringing the moon, stars, sky path and key celestial elements forward through a green/yellow night-glow effect.
The final layer is revealed when a UV torch is directed onto the mural. This activates the hidden colour elements — including the creek, glowing ghost mushrooms, flannel flowers, dragonflies, wattle, fairy-wrens, raven, possum and other hidden creatures — creating a “find a fairy and creature” adventure for children, families and visitors.
This UV reveal is intended to make the mural interactive, encouraging people to return after dark, move through the laneway slowly, and discover details that are not visible in ordinary light.
Michael Scarrott | Biripi artist and Cook family descendant
Evening Sky Mural is my personal interpretation and tribute to my great-great-great grandmother, the Biripi Cook family matriarch Jessie Brummy Cook, who passed at Lower Bowman near Gloucester on 21 April 1942.
I have centred Jessie because all Cook family descendants are connected through her. In this way, a tribute marking the evening of her passing also recognises the Biripi matrilineal strength we carry with us each day.
The mural is grounded in the sky data of that evening. After sunset, the Seven Sisters appeared low in the western evening sky, descending toward the Barrington Tops and western ranges. The Moon was a waxing crescent, reflecting the light of the sun from afar. That same night fell within the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower - an extraordinary alignment with one of the oldest recorded meteor showers known to human observation.
For me, this incredible sky moment speaks to GGG Jessie joining our ancestors in spirit, with the shooting stars carrying her passing into the ancestral sky. The stars represent our ancestors: not always visible, but always present, watching over us and guiding us.
The mural is being developed for the Gloucester laneway as two connected parts across a large wall, approximately 4.5 metres wide by 8 metres high. A larger-than-life community silhouette will sit at the base of the mural, with the evening sky extending above. The upper sky section will use my photoluminescent process, allowing the late afternoon sun to charge the artwork so the sky slowly comes alive, glowing after dark.
The laneway itself is part of the story. Its entrance sits in Gloucester town and leads toward the Bucketts / Buccan Buccans and Billabong Park, where the Cook family plaque commemorates Jack and Jessie Cook and their descendants. In this way, the mural becomes part of a pathway between town, Country, family memory and sky.
This concept artwork is shared as my interpretation and tribute, for the purpose of celebrating Biripi culture, honouring the legacy of Jessie Brummy Cook and the Cook family, and sharing our stories.
Marrungbu
(Gathang language phrase meaning thank you)
Arts Gloucester is a recipient of funding through the MidCoast Arts Support Program. This project is supported by the MidCoast Arts Support Program, a MidCoast Council initiative assisting the creative industry sector.