Artist Catherine O’Donnell will be in Orange next week to install a series of public art ‘pasteups’ as part of Orange City Council’s FutureCity upgrade of the central business district.
The Blue Mountains’ artist is known for her hyperrealist black and white drawings of ubiquitous suburban architecture.
Mayor Reg Kidd says Ms O’Donnell joins artists Yanni Pounartzis of Canberra, and Tully Moore and Sandon Gibbs-O’Neill of Orange, in contributing to the first instalment of the Future City Public Art Project.
LOOK TWICE: Catherine O’Donnell’s ‘paste-up’ planned for Post Office Lane.
“Each artist has their own distinct style and each project is very different, which means we now have an impressive variety of public art throughout the city centre,” Cr Kidd said.
“I look forward to seeing the city’s offering of public art grow in the future, creating yet another element to draw people into the CBD and encourage them to spend more time there.”
Ms O’Donnell and her subcontractors Tint and Protect will install a series of seven public artworks on facades in the CBD on Wednesday 3 November and Thursday 4 November.
Ms O’Donnell has reproduced a series of detailed charcoal drawings of domestic doors and windows onto aluminium film.
These prints of doors, windows or entry ways will be scaled up or down to fit into the surroundings, creating the illusion of a domestic home or dwelling amongst the busy CBD, becoming a portal for the imagination.
Orange City Council’s Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee Chair Tony Mileto said the unique artworks would add an unexpected element of fun for passers-by, while reinvigorating overlooked spaces in the CBD.
“I’m sure they will receive a great response from the community as they encourage people to explore the inner city and perhaps revisit a part of the CBD they haven’t seen in a while,” he said.
Ms O’Donnell has worked as a professional artist for more than a decade and has exhibited widely across Australia and internationally.
She has created numerous large-scale works including a full-sized house drawn on paper and the gallery walls for the Australian Drawing Biennale at the Art Gallery of NSW, a suite of large-scale tape installations of the Sirius building for Penrith Regional Gallery, a 20-metre drawing installation for Casula Powerhouse Art Centre and a laneway activation project with Rockhampton Regional Gallery.
Her drawings are an exploration of the architecture, culture, and history hidden within the everyday urban environment.
Ms O’Donnell is interested in the way that ordinary architecture and general streetscapes of the places we regularly inhabit become recessed into our minds like wallpaper – at once visible and invisible.
