GreenWay Public Art

 

Photo: Supplied

Benjamin Muir is interested in the intersection of Art, Architecture and the natural world around us. With a focus on recycled and waste materials, his practice creating buildings and works which not only relate to their context but could not exist in any other. He grew up in the Northern Beaches of Sydney but has lived in the Inner West for the past 10 years. 

What can we expect from your artwork? 

The artwork expresses the sedimentary rock layers of the Sydney Basin with the diverse patinas in a simple monumental form. 

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

Working on the GreenWay is an opportunity to engage more directly with the sometimes-hidden identity of the local landscape within the greater Sydney Basin and to present these ideas to the public in a raw and honest form. 

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Sedimentary Earth Core

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at muirdesignstudio.com.au or on Instagram at @muirdesignstudio.

This artwork is proudly supported by the NSW Government under the Parramatta Road Urban Amenity Improvement Program. PRUAIP is a $198 million initiative funded by the NSW Government to improve open space and active transport links along the Parramatta Road corridor. Inner West Council is one of six Councils including Strathfield, Burwood, Canada Bay, Parramatta and Cumberland delivering a total of 32 projects in and around Parramatta Road. This is part of the government’s commitment to revitalising precincts between the Inner west and Parramatta. 

Photo: Supplied

Jasmine is a proud Kamilaroi and Jerrinja woman from NSW. Born and raised in Wollongong (Dharawal Country) as well as South Coast in Nowra (Jerrinja and Yuin Country). Jasmine is also a professional firefighter with FRNSW, a lover of good coffee and rugby league. Jasmine’s artistic practice spans across a range of mediums including painting, digital and graphic design art, sculptures and murals. The narratives behind Jasmine’s artworks are often linked to the way we connect, the way we come together, and how we grow as a community. These concepts are illustrated in her work as concentric circles, connection lines, floral emblems, and textured patterns symbolic of landscape. All of which reflect her cultural connection to country. Jasmine has worked with a range of clients and projects, including Pfizer, NRMA, Rebel Sport, NSW Ombudsman, Transport NSW, Inner West Council, BlueScope Steel, AMP Capitol, Deloitte, as well as many schools and private commissions. 

Jasmine is working in collaboration with Jane Cavanough, Director of Artlandish Art and Design. Jane has degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Visual Arts. Jane is the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship and has played an integral design role in winning both an international and invitational competitions. Jane works both solely and in design teams for local and state government, developers such as Urban Growth NSW, statutory bodies such as Centennial Parklands as well as Landscape Architecture and Architecture firms, to develop each project from concept through to documentation. 

Photo: Sydney Living Museums

James Gulliver Hancock is a visual communicator/illustrator/artist known for his playful and approachable work. His obsession with communicating through drawing has seen him work for major projects around the globe, seeing his work appear on everything from train carriages, to books, to furniture, clothing, ceramics, boardgames, public artworks and animations. 

I grew up in Sydney, Australia, and studied Visual Communications at the University of Technology. In kindergarten I remember devising the most complex image I could think of, detailing a complex drawing of a city of houses including every person, every spider web between every house, and all the plumbing etc. It was a cunning plan that allowed me not to move on to any of the other tasks for the day. I continue to make drawing the focus of my day and continue to be inspired by the built environment and how it exists and evolves around us.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

Having grown up in Balmain/Rozelle I explored the goods lines regularly as a teenager. I was fascinated by the connection to far off places by the metal rails that twisted through the inner city. It was intriguing that they now lay dormant. What happened? Where was everyone? I have always been interested in the ways cities work, how engineering and city planning crisscross with the everyday of people’s lives in the city.

Not only is engineering and transportation functionality at play in these spaces, but history also. My work takes the history of the goods line, where stories and history lay between the weeds and creates a dynamic whimsical sculpture for all ages to enjoy in the present day. 

It takes the form of a rusted steel train, scaled down, with carriages carrying elements of environment and community being carried down the line, with nods to history, contemporary community and ecology. 

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

To be from this area and be able to bring my skills as a visual communicator to an area I know so well and have grown up in is quite special. I have spent so much time wandering the local streets and rail lines that to be able to create something that sits within this new stage of urban development is very powerful for me.  

I have been developing my practice since I was a little kid wandering around drawing the buildings in the streets of the Inner West, it feels somewhat cyclical to now be back again talking to all the changes that have occurred. 

Working on large works such as this that will be interacted with over many years is thrilling. Creating long lasting works whose message will traverse through time is exciting. I love the idea that local residents might use it as way finding and for personal mapping within their daily routines. 

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Fun history train.

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at jamesgulliverhancock.com or Instagram at @gulliverhancock.

Photo: Cindy Kavanagh

Floria Tosca's practice is multidisciplinary, and illuminates the dualities of existence; strength and fragility, the beautiful and grotesque, life and death. She was raised in a rural setting that nourished her communion with the natural world and with her training in medicine she possesses a sensitivity to our impact upon the environment, as well as nature’s place in our psyche. This complex relationship of the organic and human footprint often plays out in her creations with what is mythical, bizarre or overlooked.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

'Ghost Fungus' or Omphalotus nidiformis is the fruiting body of a large subterranean mycelial network. It is able to glow or bioluminesce at night. 

The work is paying homage to the networks that have been destroyed in the creation of this tunnel, a walkway created to provide safe connections and networks for humans. As you walk through, expect to be reminded of the awe that nature is capable of inspiring.

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

I was thrilled to receive the news that my work was selected. It meant I could actualize a major work I've been thinking about for a long time, with fabrication support that allows it to be built to an exciting scale. It also means that I can be part of making a commute or journey more joyful for the residents and visitors of Dulwich Hill and the Inner West. It's an opportunity to plant a seed in people's minds about the natural world around them and how we may be in relationship with it.

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Glow. Awe. Immersion.

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at floriatosca.com or on Instagram at @floriatosca_artist

Photo: Deborah Umbaugh Ierano

Carla Gottgens is a multi-disciplinary artist working across 3D and 2D outcomes. Carla’s public sculptural works can be found across Australia from far north QLD, to rural NSW and suburban VIC.

Her 2D artworks have been commissioned by public and corporate organisations across the country and adorn surfaces that range from a domed roundabout, a town’s water tower, a chemical storage tank and a public outdoor pool fence.

With a background in documentary photography, Carla’s art practice finds constant inspiration from social behaviour, unsung heros, childhood tales and the small things we often overlook in nature and our surroundings. With an adventurous cheeky streak, she loves including forms of engagement in her artworks whether this is through puzzle solving, hide and seek games or elements of surprise that invite the viewer to look a little closer at her creations.

Her career highlights include winning the Townsville Ephemera acquisition prize, the Lorne Sculpture Biennale indoor prize, Sculpture on the Greens prize, Toorak Village Sculpture Traders Award and being commissioned to create permanent artworks for councils across Australia.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

Birds of a Feather celebrate the bird life of the Inner West. This sculptural work is a walk through installation of steel and glass. With the assistance of the Inner West Environment Group, 10 birds were chosen to be represented as natural residents in the Inner West Greenway. The stylised feathers display colours found within each bird with a large coloured glass disc embedded in each feather representing the eye of each bird. The glass can be looked through giving a kaleidoscopic stained glass effect.

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

In an increasingly competitive market, this commission puts a literal feather in my cap when I look at the projects I have been awarded. This commission brings to life a concept that will allow people to interact with a sculptural work that is designed to be engaged with. Every commission I win, is testament that I am creating a space for my work that offers a slightly different approach to steel work.

Using bright colours and other materials  combined with steel presents a different approach to the stereotype of steelwork that is traditionally cold and solid. Having artworks dotted around the country in different pockets of community and natural settings is a wonderful mark to make within the public art world.

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Colourful. Quirky. Inviting.

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at cgphotography.com.au or on Instagram at @carlagottgens

Photo: Hurstville Museum and Gallery

Ox King (Steven Nuttall) Is a contemporary mural artist and painter based in Sydney's Inner West. Alternating practice between the studio and large scale murals across Australia for over 10 years. His work explores our relationship between the artificial and natural world in a modern urban environment. Through the use of bold colour and form the work focuses on depictions of nature in an unnatural context.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

‘Wild Life’ is an immersive mural installation that plunges the viewer into the secret world of some of Australia's lesser known flora and fauna. Taking inspiration from aquarium tunnels and similar natural history exhibits the work aims to capture the childlike wonder of experiencing the natural world from an up close perspective.

The mural explores a variety of biodiverse habitats that can be found along the GreenWay and surrounding areas, from the aquatic life of the riverways to the nocturnal animals of the underbrush and finally the airborne creatures of the treetops. ‘Wild Life’ is a journey through the special environments of the GreenWay and its incredibly unique inhabitants. 

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

Being selected to work on the GreenWay project is a great honour. My work often explores our connection with nature and the balance we try to strike living in a modern urban city while maintaining our relationship with the natural environment, for that reason I think this is the perfect project to be working on. The GreenWay aims to marry the modern functions of a city with the preservation of the precious natural habitats and the wildlife that makes Australia so unique. In this context I think my practice and subject matter is a great fit to embody the ideals of the project.

I hope to highlight some of the reasons that the project is so important in the rare endangered animals that are depicted in the work. These creatures are not the stereotypical emblems of Australiana that we are used to seeing but they are no the less incredibly important to Australia's natural identity. These creatures are often out of sight from most people but their presence in the GreenWay is no less vital, the mural hopes to depict these wonderful creatures, showing a glimpse into their secret world and educating the viewer on what is living in their own backyards. 

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Immersive. Australian. Artwork.

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at oxking.com.au or on Instagram at @theoxking.

Photo: Supplied

Mark  is a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts, AFTRS and the Jam Factory Centre for Craft and Design. A Masters from COFA brought things together into a multi layered studio of art craft and design operating out of Among The Trees in Marrickville.  He is currently studying Conservation and Ecosystem Management has lead to an exploration of cross species design. A way of responding to habitat loss in our urban environments.

I place an emphasis on recycled building timber recalling the materials’ forgotten origins in nature. Over time, my practice has formed partnerships with ecologists, artists, builders and communities. Process is collaborative and interdisciplinary, Whatever we build should nurture place and community.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

 An exploration of blackened trees.

This is not where we are conditioned to look for beauty, but beauty is there in the sepia palette and sculptural forms with their markings and hollows. There is also function in these trees, providing homes, renewal and regrowth. This work explores the intrinsic value of these trees for sustaining new life as well as for their own sake and beauty.

This has led to the work becoming a sculptural wildlife habitat.

Blackened Tree recognises the importance of the GreenWay as a wildlife corridor and will, over time, support connection in the Inner West community of people, fauna and flora. A project that explores an Australian aesthetic of blackened trees with the concept of incorporating diverse wildlife habitats into our built environment

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

Being selected has firstly reinforced my connection to the Inner West and it is an opportunity to play a part in a project that physically expresses that community connection.

That connection is not only people, the GreenWay also connects habitat fragments and help stop urban species from being marooned in small patches. It is exciting for my practice to make a contribution to all these community connections. To the fauna, flora as well as the people of the Inner West.

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Nature. Place. Community.

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online on markoryan.blogspot.com or on Instagram, at @markoryan1.

Photo: Supplied

James Voller’s practice combines contemporary public art installation and photography. His sculptures are concerned with architecture, landscape and social histories. Since moving to Australia from New Zealand, James has worked on a range of large-scale permanent and temporary artworks in a range of settings both urban and regional, nationally and internationally. James’s installations are site-responsive and combine the latest architectural materials with public art concepts. His recent works generate illusions, linking history, architecture and social identity. James is particularly interested in how history, growth and architecture impact cities’ identities and the people who live in them. 

Voller holds postgraduate degrees from RMIT and Monash Universities. In the past five years, he has undertaken over twenty major temporary and permanent public works across Australia. Other career highlights include Streets of Gold at the Museum of London in 2012, and being selected for SWELL and Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions in 2023. In 2019, Voller founded Collide Public Art Initiative, supporting and expanding artists into the Public Art realm.

What can we expect from your artwork? 

The work will translate photographs of decommissioned freight carriages and engines from the NSW Train Museum into a series of three-dimensional photographic sculptures. The work celebrates local manufacturing and the growth of Sydney.

What does it mean for you to create work along the GreenWay?

Creating an artwork for GreenWay allows me a chance to continue my ongoing investigations into the built environment and the urban and industrial history of Sydney. I’m excited to have an opportunity to present a work alongside other amazing contemporary artists, where collectively we’ll create something special. 

How would you describe your artwork in three words?

Choo-choo trains, or, historical, contemporary, accessible

How can we learn more about you and your practice? 

You can find me online at collidepublicart.com or on Instagram at @jamesvoller