Six murals, three rooms, four seasons, one story
Concept Development / Painting On-Site 2025-2026
Box Hill, Melbourne VIC
Commissioned by Local Residential for the LOCAL Box Hill BTR development, located above SKY SQR.
Through Studio Perspective’s art procurement program, this mural series moves through the building in three parts — Where the Winds Meet in the lounge, Where the Current Flows in the games room, Where the Sparrow Flies in the Mahjong room. Together they trace one continuous story of transformation, arrival and the seasons turning, painted directly onto the walls residents pass through every day.
MAHJONG ROOM : ONE WALL
Where the Sparrow Flies
Drawing on traditional Chinese bird-and-flower painting and vintage Mahjong tiles, Emma layers natural forms with cultural symbolism. In the Mahjong room, sparrows, bamboo and directional motifs reference the game itself. “Mahjong” translates to “sparrow”, with the clacking of tiles during shuffling said to resemble the chattering of sparrows, grounding the work within Box Hill’s strong East Asian cultural identity.
LOUNGE AREA : FOUR WALLS
Where the Winds Meet
Four walls, four seasons, one continuous story — a butterfly moving through its full metamorphosis across the room. Each stage marks a turn of season, somewhere between a storybook and a memory, where the personal and the seasonal sit in the same frame. The work draws on traditional Chinese bird-and-flower painting; the graphic language of woodblock print; layered with a more abstract mark-making of my own. The colour shifts from cool to warm and back again.
GAME ROOM : ONE WALL
Where the Current Flows
Layered wave forms move low across the wall, built up through rhythmic, gestural mark-making in tones of blue and grey-white. The longer you look, the more the reading shifts, water, mountain, topographic contour, the memory of a crossing.
Work in Progress
Read blog post: https://www.localresidential.com.au/news/box-hill-art-series-emma-x-zhang