IF you have eyes in your head, you can’t fail to have noticed that something has been going on in York this week.

First, the inside the of the Leeman Road pedestrian tunnel was plastered with art installations made from designer wallpaper.

Then the same team went to work on the Bonding Warehouse, using more funky wallpaper to create an artwork visible from Skeldergate Bridge.

Yesterday, they were at it again, this time transforming the front of the old White Swan Hotel in Piccadilly. It has all been the work of artist and wallpaper Deborah Bowness, and her sister and business manager, Leigh.

The pair, who grew up in Stillingfleet, have a wallpaper factory at Leeds, from where Deborah’s funky, “trick of the eye” designs are shipped to clients around the world.

Their Paper Trail project in York, on which they have been working all week, follows in the tradition of the Grand Tour and Grand Science Tours, in which works of art – or, in the case of last year’s Grand Science Tour, stunning science photographs – were displayed in public around the city.

The aim of Paper Trail has been to brighten up disused or run-down areas of York with artworks made from Deborah’s wallpaper – and also wallpaper made by students at York College, where Deborah once studied art. In the Leeman Road tunnel, the designs put up include false windows with views over landmarks such as York Minster, and “secret doorways”.

At the Bonding Warehouse, a wall facing the bridge has been covered with wallpaper that makes it look as though there are stacks of luggage cases – a theme that ties in with the building’s origins as, well, a warehouse.

Meanwhile, the White Swan has been made to look like a series of boutiques – including a bookshop and a florist.

It has been an exhausting week, Deborah admitted, but well worthwhile. “There has been a really good response from people stopping to chat and asking what we’re doing. Towards the end of the week, it has been people saying ‘it’s that Deborah, she’s doing the wallpaper!’”

The wallpaper will stay up throughout the month – or longer, if the owners of buildings that have been wallpapered want. “We hope the White Swan may be able to stay up a bit longer,” Deborah said.