Yuria Okamura and Jack Rowland's site responsive mural 'Natural Flow' references the natural environment of Strathmore.
Yuria Okamura and Jack Rowland, have created a series of site responsive artworks along Woodland Street in Strathmore, which reference local flora and landscape, unique to the Strathmore neighbourhood.
The artists have combined geometric abstraction and contemporary landscape painting to visualise connection, community and harmony. The artworks depict Five Mile Creek in a representational style using high-key colour schemes and central composition, combined with geometric shapes and patterns that symbolise connectivity and harmony in an abstract and open-ended manner. The work celebrates water as a life-giving force that flows through the land, interweaving and uniting people with their communities and with their natural environment.
The series of works are located on the east facing wall of 33 Woodland Street, ground level at 9 and 29 Woodland Street, and the park on the corner of North Avenue and Woodland Street.
Yuria Okamura's art practice combines botanical imageries with geometric forms and patterns from across cultures. Referencing architecture, sacred geometry and patterns found in nature, she metaphorically enshrines nature within imagined architecture to symbolise harmony. Okamura holds an MFA (Research) from the University of Melbourne and a BFA (Honours) from RMIT University. She has received a number of awards including an Australia Council Career Development Grant, Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship, Ursula Hoff Institute Drawing Award, and Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award. She has exhibited widely including Incinerator Gallery, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, La Trobe Art Institute, C3 Contemporary Art Space, Anna Pappas Gallery, Five Walls and Kunstraum Tapir (Berlin).
Jack Rowland is a Melbourne-based artist, whose chromatic and saturated landscape paintings aim to offer alternative perceptions of the natural world. Rowland holds a BFA (Painting) from RMIT University, Melbourne. He has been exhibiting nationally and internationally including James Makin Gallery, Anna Pappas Gallery, Linden New Art, Rubicon ARI, Blindside Gallery, Flinders Lane Gallery and Kunstraum Tapir (Berlin). Rowland received the Hawkesbury Art Prize Highly Commended Award in 2015, and has also been short listed for a number of prizes such as Bayside Aquisitive Art Prize, Albany Art Prize and Substation Art Prize.
This project is partially funded through the State Government’s Working for Victoria initiative.
