Public art is a major component of Orange City Council’s Future City Plan – a bold attempt to re-vitalise Orange’s Central Business District (CBD).

The public art component of Future City offers opportunities for local, regional and established Australian artists to create ambitious, high calibre public murals, installations and sculpture throughout the Orange CBD. Artists are encouraged to develop work that engages with the past, present and future of Oranges’ identity with the aim of activating public space and reinvigorated the CBD.

This 3 year project is funded by the NSW Government and Orange City Council and will be delivered in two stages:

Stage 1 2020/2021 – Public Murals and Installations

Stage 2 2022/2023 – Laneway Project

Images: Top left – Kellie O’Dempsey, What did you say?, Botanica, Brisbane Botanic Gardens 2021. Photo: Thomas Oliver. Community (detail) Sandon Gibbs-O’Neill and Vineyards (detail), Yanni Pounartzis. Stage 1, FutureCity Public Art Project

Participation in the Future City Public Art Project is by Expression of Interest.

EOIs for Stage 1 – Public Murals and Installations opened on 9 November 2020 and closed on 3 January 2021.

EOIs for Stage 2 – Laneway project opened on 6 December 2022 and closed on 16 January 2023.

Selection Panel

Submissions are assessed by a panel of industry professionals, community representatives and Orange City Council staff:

Associate Professor Felicity Fenner – Public Art Advisor, Curator, Author and Lecturer
Aleshia Lonsdale – Artist, Curator and Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at Arts OutWest
Gillian Serisier – Design, Architecture and Arts Writer
Tony Cheney – Chair of the Orange Regional Arts Foundation
Nick Redmond – Manager Corporate and Community Relations, Orange City Council
Brad Hammond – Director Orange Regional Gallery, Orange City Council
Lucy Stranger – Curator, Orange Regional Gallery, Orange City Council

Selection Criteria

The selection panel assesses each application according to the following criteria:

• Successful integration of aesthetics, technical skill and conceptual rigour
• demonstrated ability to work on significant projects within timelines and budget
• previous relevant experience in the public realm
• ability to develop concepts and communicate ideas
• demonstrated ability to create work that engages with a broad public
• availability to work within the project timeline
• experience with materials of relevance to the required project outcome.

Selection panel members, Gillian Serisier, Felicity Fenner , Aleshia Lonsdale, Tony Cheney and Brad Hammond exploring potential public art sites, 2021.

The following artists will be commencing work in the second half of 2021 and throughout 2022:

Zanny Begg – Bulli, NSW
Julia Davis and Lisa Jones – Sydney, NSW
Sandon Gibbs O’Neill – Orange, NSW
Tully Moore – Orange, NSW
Kellie O’Dempsey – Brisbane, QLD
Catherine O’Donnell – Blue Mountains, NSW
Yanni Pounartzis – Canberra, ACT
Maria Shaw – Orange, NSW
Liz Shreeve – Sydney, NSW
Floria Tosca – Sydney, NSW

Sandon Gibbs O’Neill – Orange, NSW
Community

Sandon Gibbs O’Neill is a proud Nhunngabarra man who is inspired by the legacy of his Grandfather, Tex Skuthorpe, a highly respected Nhunggal man, artist, teacher and author. Sandon creates

Sandon’s mural Community is a contemporary design that draws on aspects of traditional Aboriginal art. The three rivers, painted in blue, reflect the Wiradjuri people, the ‘people of the three rivers’ the Wambool (Macquarie), Kalari (Lachlan) and Murrumbidgee. The two circular designs joined by a pathway illustrates past, present and future communities and the importance of sharing knowledge and showing respect. The background circle illustrates the land and how everything is connected. The use of dots within the circular pattern reflect community with each dot having an important role in the overall circle. Just as each person plays a vital role in our community. Community reflects a connection to the land on which we walk and it’s traditional custodians, the Wiradjuri people.

Website: https://burruguuart.com/
Instagram: @burruguu_art

Sandon Gibbs-O’Neill, Community, 2021

Tully Moore – Orange, NSW
Beginning and The End

A Country Practice is an ongoing art project directed by Tully Moore.  This iteration of Tully’s practice continues a long-standing interest and involvement in decorative arts, fine art and collaboration. The project focuses on traditional trompe l’oeil still life paintings and its historical standing in both the commercial and fine art realm.

Tully’s Future City Public Art Project is a two-part continuation of A Country Practice created in reference to his other ‘fruit and vege’ job just up the road at a produce wholesale business that services many local restaurants. The Beginning reflects a selection of cultural cuisines available in the surrounding streets in the form of painted trompe l’eoil ‘tea towels’ installed over a large wall painting that references fresh produce and its associated packaging. The final component is a complete wall and roof painting on the neighbouring public toilet, the penultimate stop on this gastronomic journey as all things much reach The End.

Website: (http://tullymoore.com.au/
Instagram: @a_country_practice and @simonfitzsimon

Tully Moore, Beginning, 2021

Yanni Pounartzis – Canberra, ACT
Vineyards and Geometric Shadows

Yanni Pounartzis works in a distinctive style of abstract, minimalist, hard edge painting with a focus on the investigation of perspective and colour.

Yanni is creating two works for Stage 1 of the Future City Public Art Project. Vineyards is an abstract interpretation of Orange’s many vineyards presented as a large scale mural that extends beyond the wall, over the pavement and onto the road. Geometric Shadows captures particular moments in time through the mapping of shadows in geometric colour, focusing attention on otherwise unnoticed and mundane urban structures.

Website: https://yannipounartzis.com/
Instagram: @yanni_pounartzis

Yanni Pounartzis, Vineyards,  2021

Catherine O’Donnell – Blue Mountains, NSW
Beyond the walls

Catherine O’Donnell’s drawings are an exploration of the architecture, culture, and history hidden within the everyday-ness of the urban/suburban environment. She is interested in the way that vernacular architecture and general streetscapes of the places we regularly inhabit become recessed into our minds like wallpaper — at once visible and invisible.

For her Future City Public Art Project Catherine will reproduce her hyperrealist black-and-white drawings of doors and windows onto aluminium film and reinsert these commonplace architectural features back into the cityscape, adding an unexpected element of delight to the ordinary routes of passers-by and elevating the everyday history of these buildings.

Website: https://www.catherineodonnell.com.au/
Instagram: @catherine_odo

Catherine O’Donnell, Beyond the walls, 2021

Floria Tosca – Sydney NSW
Biome

Floria Tosca’s artwork examines the dualities of existence; strength and fragility, the beautiful and the grotesque, life and death. The artist is sensitive to our impact on 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 compositions with what is mythical, bizarre or overlooked.

Floria’s Future Cities mural Biome celebrates the biodiversity of the Orange region. A Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) stands on a throne of Cage Fungus (Clathrus cibarius) and Mycena, with its fruiting fungal bodies emerging like upheld golden arms. Common Blue Banded bees (Amegilla cingulata) and Neon Cuckoo bees (Thyreus nitidulus) adorn this throne, like jewels, with their iridescent stripes and spots while Diuris orchids, (sulphurea and semilunata) sprout from the golden mushroom arms.

Website: https://www.floriatosca.com/
Instagram: @floriatosca_artist

Floria Tosca, Biome (detail) 2021

Liz Shreeve – Sydney, NSW
Interrupted Spectrum

Interrupted Spectrum is a site specific response to the eastern brickwork façade of the Woolworth’s building on Anson Street. Liz’s project will transform the existing wall through the careful selection and application of painted colour — energising the wall and providing a stimulating visual experience for passing pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Interrupted Spectrum is a celebration of colour and the wonderful clear light of a clean country sky.

Website: https://lizshreeve.com.au/
Instagram: @lizshreeve

Liz Shreeve, Interrupted Spectrum, 2022

Maria Shaw – Orange, NSW
Eucalyptus 

Maria Shaw uses her art practice to explore the colours and textures of her everyday surroundings and to processes complex personal thoughts and feelings.

Eucalyptus is a ceramic installation inspired by the vegetation of Mount Canobolas that brings the natural world into the urban environment. By using a variety of glazes and textures Maria encourages people of all abilities to explore the subtle surface variations of her work through the senses of touch and sight.

Website: Artworks – Maria Shaw Artist (wordpress.com)
Instagram: @mariashawartist

Julia Davis and Lisa Jones – Sydney, NSW
Shadowline

Julia Davis and Lisa Jones are multidisciplinary artists who maintain independent practices and also collaborate on creative projects. Since 2009 their collaborative practice has reflected on transience and the embodiment of place.

Referencing push pins on a map Shadowline is a series of gilded, concrete spheres positioned to mark the original meandering path of Blackmans Swamp Creek between Orange Regional Gallery and Matthews Park. Shadowline references layers of natural, geological and human history, drawing our attention to Blackmans Swamp Creek in its altered continuation under our present-day parks, roads and footpaths.

Website: https://davis-jones.net/
Instagram: jdavis_and_ljones

Julia Davis and Lisa Jones, Shadowline, 2022. Photo: Richard Glover

Kellie O’Dempsey, Brisbane QLD
What did you say? and Bloom 

Kellie O’Dempsey creates site-generated installations and performances that integrate projection, video, collage, architectural space, gestural line, performance and digital drawing. Creating in both solo and collaborative formats with sound artists and contemporary dance practitioners, O’Dempsey’s diverse practice explores, deconstructs and heightens the concept of public space as shared experience.

Kellie O ’Dempsey’s What did you say? will light up Robertson Park between sunset and midnight from Thursday 20 – Sunday 30 October 2022.  We invite you to explore the park after dark and discover this interactive installation as part of Orange City Council’s Future City Public Art Project.

Microscopic pores called stomata cover the surface of leaves exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. The world ‘stomata’ comes from the Greek word ‘stoma’ meaning ‘mouth’. What did you say? reimagines a tree’s stomata as the mouth through which the planet breathes. Viewers are asked to listen and engage in deep breathing, to be present in the moment, to connect, consider and rest. Using augmented reality, projected imagery and a soundscape of breathing, the artwork responds to our strange and ever-shifting social and environmental climate.

Artist Kellie O’Dempsey , Sound Mick Dick , AR Animations Helena Papageorgiou

What did you say?, Botanica, Brisbane Botanic Gardens 2021. Photo: Thomas Oliver

Due to wet weather the live light performance, Bloom on Saturday 22 October 2022 in Robertson Park has been postponed. The event will be rescheduled for a later date in Autumn 2023.

A spectacular light and sound performance by Kellie O’Dempsey (light) and Mick Dick (sound) in Robertson Park, Bloom will transform the park after dark as swathes of luminous colour are projected onto the trees during two immersive live drawing and sound performances.

Website: Kellie O’Dempsey
Instagram: @kellieodempsey and @mick.dick.dub

Kellie O’Dempsey and Mick Dick performance, Botanica, Brisbane Botanical Gardens 2021. Photo: Cian Sanders

An interactive map is in development and will be available here in the second half of 2021.