Salt Lake City’s 9th & 9th whale is wearing a new look. On Oct. 1, the City announced that ‘Open Your Eyes,’ a mural by Salt Lake County artist Jiyoun Lee-Lodge, was complete on the sculpture ‘Out of the Blue’ at 900 South and 1100 East. The completed artwork is the latest chapter for a neighborhood fixture: a public sculpture with a design built around local water, sky and community.
The mural uses gradients of pink and blue, flowing wave patterns and dots of color across the whale’s full surface. The 360-degree design changes with the viewer’s position. Salt Lake City’s Public Art Program says its colors draw on the shifting hues of the Great Salt Lake and Utah skies, while the waves represent people moving in and out of the city and identities in motion. The dots stand for the different people and communities that make up Salt Lake City.
There is also a small detail that changes how the sculpture meets a passerby: one of the whale’s eyes is open and the other is closed. The Arts Council describes that choice as suggesting kindness, awareness and openness to others. Rather than a single image seen from one direction, the work asks visitors to move around the sculpture and take in its shifting views.
A design shaped before the paint went up
The City says Lee-Lodge was selected through a public call open to artists based in Salt Lake County. Before the call, more than 1,700 residents used the City’s ‘What’s Next for the Whale?’ participation project to share what the installation meant to them. That input was shared with applicants to inform their proposals. The number describes residents who contributed to that process; it was not a citywide ballot choosing the final mural.
The City received 35 applications. Four finalists presented designs to the Salt Lake Art Design Board and neighborhood stakeholders, who unanimously selected Lee-Lodge’s concept. The design emerged through both public input and a review by arts officials and neighborhood representatives. The City said the artist painted on site from late August through September.
Lee-Lodge credited the neighbors who cheered and supported her while she worked. In the City’s account, she described ‘Open Your Eyes’ as an invitation to embrace difference, welcome change and celebrate the people who make the city distinctive. Those themes are also present in the artwork’s official interpretation: its colors and moving waves refer to place and change, while the differently painted eyes suggest paying attention to people around us.
A familiar whale, ready for another chapter
The sculpture itself has already hosted several visual chapters. Salt Lake City says Stephen Kesler’s ‘Out of the Blue’ was installed in 2022. Its first mural, ‘Point of Reference’ by Mike Murdock, reflected the neighborhood’s sunrises and sunsets. The Public Art Program plans to refresh the sculpture’s mural every three to five years, giving artists and residents a recurring chance to see a known landmark interpreted anew.
Axios Salt Lake City independently reported on the finished design on Oct. 2, confirming Lee-Lodge’s authorship, its inspiration from the Great Salt Lake and Utah skies, and the role of city arts officials and community members in selecting the concept. The outlet also described the whale as a neighborhood fixture with a history of community events and organized runs around the sculpture.
For residents who know the roundabout, ‘Open Your Eyes’ adds a new surface to an already recognizable piece of public art. For people encountering it for the first time, the design offers several ways into the story: the place that inspired its colors, the community whose input reached the finalists, and the artist who spent weeks painting while neighbors encouraged her. The full work can be seen from all sides at 900 South and 1100 East, where each vantage point reveals a little more of its changing pattern.
The whale remains the same sculpture, but its public story is not fixed. A new mural gives the neighborhood a fresh detail to notice and a reminder that shared places can keep changing while staying familiar.
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