One of the largest pieces of public art in Scotland is at home in Glasgow.

The stunning ceiling mural in the auditorium of the Oran Mor is the work of acclaimed writer and artist Alasdair Gray.

The Riddrie boy has made an astonishing mark across the building with his set of murals at the converted church on the corner of Byres Road and Great Western Road.

The images adorn the ceiling and walls at the Oran Mor, one of the country’s most popular day and nightspots.

His work is admired, respected and loved by many, including Richard Demarco and the late Amy Whitehouse. She said the room was among the most beautiful she had ever seen.

Yet it wasn’t quite planned the way it turned out.

Alasdair had initially thought he would “paint a few stars on the ceiling”. But a little “like Topsy, it growed”.

The beams on the ceiling divide the space into six areas. That inspired the opportunity to paint the 12 signs of the zodiac.

And duly inspired, he delved into a Ladybird children’s book on the subject.

Words across the ceiling include the legend: “Work as if you were living in the early days of a better nation”.

The words are also carved into the wall of the Scottish Parliament on the Canongate.

Alasdair is not only a master of the brushes.

His most acclaimed novel is Lanark, which was published in 1981. It was written over a period of almost 30 years.

It is now regarded as a classic and has been described by The Guardian as “one of the landmarks of 20th-century fiction”.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957 and taught there from 1958 to 1962. It was as a student that he first embarked on what would become his novel Lanark.

Later, his novel Poor Things from 1992 won the Whitbread Prize and The Guardian Fiction Prize.

Back at the Oran Mor, genuine fascination at the images that every day appear to reveal something fresh and new among the gold stencilled thistles, roses, leeks and hearts.

And of course, the stars.