The Moore Road Mural – A tribute to local landscapes and culture
The Moore Road Mural is the latest public art commission for the Wilman Wadandi Highway (the Bunbury Outer Ring Road project), capturing the essence of the area, and Bunuru, the driest of the Noongar seasons through a rich yet minimalist narrative.
Published: 03 December 2024, Updated: 03 December 2024
The Noongar Six Seasons are central to the project’s Urban Design Strategy and brings each zone to life with culturally significant colours and narratives. This visually enhances motorists’ journeys driving the highway and allows them to experience the shifting seasonal landscape.
West Australian artist Mel McVee
Mel McVee is a West Australian artist whose work spans across community art, murals, sculptures, and illustration. She has a passion for community driven art and activations in local spaces.
The Moore Road Mural
The mural will be located on the southbound side of the Wilman Wadandi Highway, near Moore Road in Picton, along a screen wall that runs parallel to the highway. The wall is approximately 168 metres in length and is made up of 42 concrete panels that are 2.4 metres high and 4 metres wide. The wall provides a canvas of around 470 metres square.
This artwork is inspired by the Noongar season of Bunuru, which is the ‘second-summer’ period from February to March. This is the hottest time of the year, and all the artworks featured in this section use earthy browns, sandy colours and reds. It also represents the community and place theme of geology and farmland.
Artist Mel McVee
Mel has embraced simplicity and crafted a bold yet accessible narrative design.. The story centres on the Black-Winged Stilt, surrounded by leaves and depicted alongside sargassum seaweed commonly found along local beaches. These elegant birds are highly sociable and are a familiar sight on the edges of Bunbury’s ocean shores, wetland, and rivers, foraging for food at the water’s edge. Fun fact - their long, spindly legs make up 60% of their body height!
In Mel’s design, the highway itself represents the shoreline, and the Stilts’ long limbs dance up and down its length. The background design reflects the idea of the setting sun. When viewed from left to right it slowly dissipates from lightness to darkness and brings the feeling of a hot summer day turning into a balmy night.
As the Moore Road Mural takes shape it will stand as a celebration of the area’s environment and culture, enhancing the journey along the highway with its simple and striking narrative. Travellers from far and wide will experience a visual ode to Bunbury’s native species, blended with the essence of the South West landscape.
