Nylex clock silos get Tiger treatment
Commuters stuck in Punt Rd traffic will have something new to ponder for the next three months, with Cremorne’s landmark Nylex clock silos sporting a fresh look.
Three of the massive concrete cylinders have been draped by an artwork celebrating the story of the to-be-developed site and the city’s cultural diversity.
The mural by Melbourne-based and Colombian-born street artist Julian Clavijo was unfurled on Thursday and features happy, smiling children — including one in a Tigers guernsey — floating in a blue sky.
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The Nylex clock silos will be adorned with artwork until the end of June.
The significant artwork weighs more than 450kg. Picture: Nicole Garmston.
“It’s an interpretation of the place and time and what we are as a community today with multiculturalism and how we can all live in harmony, without any judgment, and that is all represented through the innocence of different background children,” Clavijo says.
“We wanted to symbolise the past, present and future of the site.
“The hourglasses relate to the Nylex clock as well, and instead of sand they are filled with barley seeds, which is what these silos contained for so long in The Malt District.”
The piece faces the Yarra River and follows in the footsteps of other painted silo works around regional Victorian towns including Brim, Patchewollock and Sheep Hills.
Workers unfurl the artwork on the Nylex clock silos. Picture: Nicole Garmston.
Heritage Victoria, whose controls prohibited painting directly onto the Cremorne silos, approved installation of the mural.
Weighing approximately 450kg, the work is 28 metres high and 16 metres wide.
It was painted in a Brunswick studio by Clavijo and a small team of artists and will be up until the end of June.
Most of the silos will remain, under a $1 billion mixed-use redevelopment by Caydon.
This article from the Herald Sun first appeared as “Yellow and black facelift for Nylex clock silos”.
