Hesperia is pleased to announce Melissa Cameron; Rohin Kickett and Matthew McVeigh; and Anne Neil as the artists commissioned to create a series of public artworks at Murdoch Square.
Following an extensive Expression of Interest (EOI) campaign, the four Australian artists were carefully selected to inject creativity into the community precinct, through works that reflect the values and intent of Murdoch Square.
Each piece will be strategically positioned in key locations throughout the precinct, to promote foot traffic and create moments of interactivity.
As part of their brief, artists were tasked with developing intertwining concepts that recognise experiences and knowledge of a multicultural world, which are fundamental to a healthy society. Artists were also asked to consider that approaches to holistic health are found by linking the physical to the emotional; the cultural to the cognitive.
Melissa Cameron
Melissa’s work is exhibited worldwide with public collections featured in the National Gallery of Australia, the University of Iowa Museum of Art and Cheongju Collection in South Korea.
Titled Breathe, Melissa’s artwork is a graphic, abstract representation of inhalation and exhalation. A pair of large, pixelated circles are made from, and interconnected by, a stream of smaller circles. Through contrasting colours, binary coding will be used to insert the words ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’ into the piece. Melissa will arrange the words to flow into one another in a cycle of inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale. This will create spaces which she will fill with two other words, ‘draw’ and ‘exchange’, shown in the roundels of lighter hue. These unrepeated words describe the intake and output systems of breathing, as we draw each new breath to exchange the products of each spent one.
Rohin Kickett and Matthew McVeigh
Rohin is a Nyoongar artist and passionate advocate for Nyoongar arts and professional development. Expressed in the form of murals, installations, photography, and paintings on canvas, Rohin covers a broad range of topics in his works. These include connection to country, family stories of strength and survival caused by passed government policies, and the impact we see today in the Nyoongar community.
Matthew is an interdisciplinary artist working across theatre, public and community art. He employs a wide range of materials, processes, technologies and semiotics to create work that is often bold and layered with nuance and meaning.
Rohin and Matthew’s piece titled Elders Cast Hands, will be their first artistic collaboration in the public art realm. This sculpture will highlight the three different roles that hands play in our lives; communication, healing and nurturing, showcasing therapeutic touch as a form of cultural ‘energy, medicine and osteopathy.’
Anne Neil
Anne’s early training and arts practice in jewellery continues to inform her sculptures. Metals remain her passion and although the scale of her current work can only be accomplished through industrial fabrication, the counterbalance of subtle surface treatments illustrates her joy of handcrafted techniques. She has exhibited in Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Switzerland.
Titled A Bank of friends, Anne’s work comprises six swan sculptures on the plaza’s podium level. The high foot traffic space will benefit from the life size artworks as they incorporate joyful and playful props that relate to the activities within the precinct or expresses the notion of care.
The artists will commence their works in the coming months, aligning with Murdoch Square’s slated competition date, later this year. Further to this, two more artist will be announced.
