Snap, Travel and Pop

One of the most surreal experiences on our travels was helping world famous street artist Thierry Noir paint a mural on the outside of an Australian millionaire’s house, with additional help from two models. Life is full of surprises when you go seeking for adventure!

This all started when an old friend of Rob’s, secured a commission for Thierry Noir in Sydney through a connection with US DJ Seth Troxler. And as it turned out this was all happening at precisely the same time we would be arriving in Sydney and with the promise of free lodging, food and wine we were lured in to pitch in with the painting.

When we first turned up we were amazed by the size of the place. This old warehouse had been turned into a luxury pad and was huge! We got the tour of the inside and were absolutely amazed. The downstairs houses a nightclub (complete with Seth Troxler behind the decks and a $100,000 sounds system), a fully stocked bar, an indoor swimming pool, a smoking room and British Colonial themed guest bedrooms. Upstairs the open plan living space contained top of the range kitchen and lounge area but the main feature was a huge white pod in the centre which housed the master bedroom. The whole house had been professionally decorated, containing tonnes of quirky detailing. Fancy stuff!

On the first day Thierry was hard at work planning out the mural design. We chipped in with our thoughts on which colours would work and how the whole theme would come together. With the designs complete they were sent to the owner and a guy who is only ever referred to as “Star Wars”, or “Wars” for short, for final approval.

With that done it was time to get painting! We were only helping to paint the background colours – the black lines of the characters could only be done by Thierry himself.

We had a good team painting the house. As well as us, Thierry had support from Aussie legend Willie, Thierry’s wife Nermin and their daughter Clarissa was also there. We had a lot of laughs together and Thierry has plenty of interesting stories from painting around the world.

However, it wasn’t all fun (ok, was). Using the lifters was sometimes bloody scary. Controlling the scissor lifter 15m high was terrifying – especially when there was a swift breeze. This was when Brit (girlfriend of the owner) and Tess joined us and helped paint the top of the house. All of us painting as fast as we could desperate to get back down to solid ground.

We spent about a week helping and got most of the background colours complete. We then had to move on as we only had 2 and a half months to get round Australia and it’s a bloody huge place. However, at the end of our road trip we popped back to see Brit and Thierry’s finished mural. Thierry had painted all four sides of the gigantic building while we were driving around Australia!

Wow – looks amazing and so pleased we got to help create this. Hopefully all the locals love it and it’ll be there for plenty of time to come. We’ve seen it nicknamed The Colourful House of Surry Hills and have to say that seems rather apt. What do you think?

Love the art? Check out thierrynoir.com for more…