Bowie's Blackstar artwork changes in sunlight

David Bowie
David Bowie (Image credit: Getty)

The artwork on the vinyl sleeve of David Bowie’s final album Blackstar changes when exposed to sunlight, fans have discovered.

The black star on the gatefold sleeve transforms and depicts a starry galaxy when held up to sunlight. It can be viewed below.

Blackstar, the 25th and final studio work which long-time producer Tony Visconti describes as Bowie’s “parting gift”, launched on January 8 – coinciding with the late rock icon’s 69th birthday. He died two days later after an 18-month battle with cancer.

Last month Jonathan Barnbrook, the artist who designed the artwork for Blackstar, created a lyric video for Bowie track I Can’t Give Everything Away. A previously unreleased Bowie track To Be Love was also made available to stream in March.

Meanwhile, the first title of a series of posthumous anthology releases from Bowie is expected to launch next year.

His work will be celebrated at the BBC Proms on July 29 at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The transformed 'galaxy' image on the Blackstar gatefold sleeve

The transformed 'galaxy' image on the Blackstar gatefold sleeve

The 'black star' on the gatefold sleeve

The 'black star' on the gatefold sleeve

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.