{"id":51389,"date":"2026-07-16T00:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/51389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T00:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:21:10","slug":"how-two-perth-artists-created-a-work-that-stretches-7km-through-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/51389\/","title":{"rendered":"How two Perth artists created a work that stretches 7km through the city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the raised railway that runs through Perth’s south-east is a public art project that took five months to complete and required 2,000 litres of paint.<\/p>\n

The creation of two Perth artists, Chris Nixon and Kyle Hughes-Odgers, the Linewide Graphic Trail covers the concrete piers and abutments, as well as the public spaces, that were created when the Armidale Railway line was raised.<\/p>\n

It was lifted to allow for the removal of level crossings, and the project also opened up a large amount of public space that has been filled with lawn, gardens, playgrounds and skate parks, as well as car parking.<\/p>\n

\"Coloured<\/p>\n

Coloured piers and playgrounds near the Oats St station. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)<\/p>\n

While visitors to the stations usually only see a fraction of the whole artwork (and passengers on the trains can’t see it at all), Nixon said it is designed to tell a complete story for anyone who travels under the line from Carlisle to Beckenham.<\/p>\n

“The task we set ourselves was to create an identity for each section of the line because people are going to experience it either in just a little section or maybe in its entirety,” Nixon told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth.<\/p>\n

“We wanted each space to feel completely unique to that location.<\/p>\n

“It’s very site specific in terms of the colour palette, but also the forms and the patterns that were derived from that area.<\/p>\n

“We treated it as if colour was a passenger and you would pick up a little bit from the next train station and the next location and bring that forward into the next area.”<\/p>\n

\"Shades<\/p>\n

Shades of green from olive to teal on concrete piers. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)<\/p>\n

In the first section at Carlisle, the colours are greens, before moving towards teals at Oats Street, then into orange and red at Queens Park and Cannington, and yellow at Beckenham.<\/p>\n

“All up, there are about 20 colours across the whole thing because we kept it fairly limited as a palette,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There are five or six colours max in each section, and then there was a crossover of those colours.<\/p>\n

“It did create this overall link across the whole line, which was really cohesive.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A painted abutment at Cannington Station. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)<\/p>\n

While some people might be daunted by the challenge of painting 120 concrete pylons, plus abutments and other spaces, Nixon said the duo enjoyed having such a large canvas.<\/p>\n

“It’s quite liberating. It’s actually just an opportunity to create with impact and scale, and it’s not necessarily difficult to install them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Kyle and I built a team to help us install it, and our mantra from the beginning was we just wanted to really enjoy the process and not let it be a big kind of machine and a big grind.<\/p>\n

“And when you’re designing at that scale, you’re always thinking of the audience and that experience.”<\/p>\n

\"Cannington<\/p>\n

The Cannington Station basketball court. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)<\/p>\n

A year on from its installation, the Linewide trail has escaped graffiti and been nominated for several awards, including the Dulux Colour Award, and is in the final 100 vying for a Coda Award, run by a US-based art directory website, which the pair hope may bring more international recognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the raised railway that runs through Perth’s south-east is a public art project that took five months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9259,17038,36373,36375,36374,36371,36370,36372,335,4337],"class_list":["post-51389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-armadale","tag-art","tag-art-trail","tag-beckenham","tag-carlisle","tag-chris-nixon","tag-kyle-hughes-odgers","tag-linewide","tag-perth","tag-railway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}