A Wild Life (2025)
Audio description
Audio descriptions were produced by Access2Arts.
Artwork information
- Title: A Wild Life (2025)
- Artist: Steve Nuttal (OxKing)
- Location: Constitution Road tunnel, Dulwich Hill
Text description
Ox King's vibrant mural A Wild Life covers the entire interior walls and ceiling of the Constitution Road Tunnel with colourful pop style paintings of local flora and fauna.
Signage text
A Wild Life 2025, OxKing
Dive into the Cooks river, climb up onto the embankment, trek through the underbrush and fly up into the sunlit canopy of the gum trees above you. There are amazing creatures to be found all around you.
This painting takes you on a journey through the habitats of some of the most interesting and rare species that are found along the GreenWay.
Artist statement
"Wild Life is an immersive mural installation that plunges the viewer into the secret world of some of Australia's lesser-known flora and fauna.
"Taking inspiration from aquarium tunnels and natural history exhibits, the work aims to capture the childlike wonder of experiencing the natural world from an up close perspective.
"The mural explores a variety of biodiverse habitats that can be found along the GreenWay and surrounding areas, from the aquatic life of the riverways to the nocturnal animals of the underbrush and finally the airborne creatures of the treetops.
"I hope to highlight why the GreenWay is so important through the rare, endangered animals depicted in the work. These creatures aren’t the stereotypical emblems of Australiana, but they are no less vital to our natural identity, offering a glimpse into the secret world living in our own backyards."
Artwork description
As you enter the tunnel, above you, cockatoos fly between puffy white clouds in painted brilliant blue skies under a hot yellow sun.
Psychedelic pop colours surround you, creating a stylized fantasy world that nonetheless reflects the wild environments around us.
Inhabited by bats, butterflies, owls, kookaburra, parrots, bush turkeys, heron, bandicoot, snakes and lizards, the lush foliage in shades of purple, magenta, emerald, pink and blue enfolds you. Vibrant with berries and flowers, banksia, waratah, bottlebrush, and gum blossom.
In the middle of the tunnel, trees merge overhead, two flying-fox, one blue, one orange, with wing-wrapped bodies roost upside-down from branches.
As we continue, the bush wonderland morphs into underwater scenes. Burnt orange fish swim overhead through dappled pale blue ripples in turquoise water.
Electric blue yabbies and yellow ochre turtles inhabit reed beds and orange frogs sit on slate blue rocks as maroon stems sway and golden bubbles rise. On the bank grebes and cormorants stretch their red-gold wings to dry. Exiting the tunnel, we emerge again to reality.
Surrounding context
The GreenWay is an environmental and active travel corridor linking the Cooks River at Earlwood with the Parramatta River at Iron Cove.
Travelling south, the GreenWay path passes directly under Constitution Road. On the right, a cyclone safety fence separates the path from the light rail line, which runs closely alongside it.
On the left a tall, red brick wall leads up, like a flying buttress, to the Constitution Road Tunnel entrance. Each end of the tunnel is framed with red bricks and a curved sky-blue sign reads Constitution Road. The generous 4 metre high entrances are gently rounded in an arch, giving the tunnel an unexpectedly spacious feel.
Warm white illumination is provided by a series of rectangular lights strung on a wire from the centre of the ceiling and running the length of the tunnel. Above, the roadway spans the whole tunnel, and traffic may be heard rumbling overhead.
Conclusion
A Wild Life is one of eight artworks that explore themes of, and collaborate with, the natural environment, local rail history and native flora and fauna, curated by GreenWay Public Art Program.
Commissioned by the Inner West Council on the Land of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples.
This concludes the audio description of A Wild Life, written by Catherine Fitz-Gerald for Access2Arts.