Moto Baccio Karl Myer, Renwick Street Leichhardt, 2022 Photo Credit: Inner Wester Council
More than 30 landmark artworks will form a public art trail along an active transport corridor along Parramatta Road. The works create meaningful points of connection, interest, cultural expression, knowledge sharing and vibrancy along the corridor.
Create NSW has been working closely with Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure and six local councils to implement public art as a key component of the Parramatta Road Urban Amenity Improvement Program (PRUAIP).
A Public Art Framework provided councils with a curatorial approach for the corridor as a whole, ensuring consistently high-quality public art was commissioned along the Parramatta Road corridor, aligned with the objectives of the PRUAIP.
This collaborative program of work brought together artists, government and community to realise the unique projects.
Public art plays a key role in supporting the growth of the Parramatta Road Corridor and establishing a sense of place for the community.
In total, 33 artwork commissions will be delivered including 12 First Nations-led commissions
Burwood Council, City of Canada Bay, City of Parramatta Council, Cumberland City Council, Inner West Council, Strathfield Council
Discover Parramatta Road's Art trail
Inner West Council
Petersham Escarpment, Simon Reece 2022
Petersham Escarpment is a ceramic mural by artist Simon Reece, reflective of escarpments and rock faces of the Blue Mountains and the sandstone bedrock that grounds Sydney. Community consultation revealed a strong desire for the area to be greened, and “soft-scaped”.
Installed 2022
Find it at Petersham Street, Leichhardt
Chiaroscuro, Alessandra Rossi and Adam Cruikshank 2022
Chiaroscuro by artists Alessandra Rossi and Adam Cruikshank is a gateway light work comprising beautiful coloured light cells, connected and suspended across Norton Street, that pays homage to the Italian migrants living in Leichhardt in the 50s and 60s.
Installed 2022
Find it at Norton Street, Leichhardt
Vespa, Karl Meyer, 2022
Vespa by artist Karl Meyer draws on the Italian heritage of Leichhardt, with a focus on the beloved mode of Italian transportation: the Vespa. It is a feature landmark in central Leichhardt, renamed Little Italy.
Installed 2022
Find it at Renwick Street, Leichhardt
Burwood Council
Burwood Park Mural, Sharon Billinge, 2024
Inner West Artist Sharon Billinge was commissioned to create a mural on a retaining wall inside Burwood Park. Inspired by the Burwood Park Nature play, Sensory Garden and Pond Upgrades the artwork features portraits of two local sisters surrounded by natural imagery.
Installed 2024
Find it in Burwood Park
Scholar Seats, Louise Zhang, 2023
Influenced by architectural elements found in a traditional garden, the artwork was commissioned to reinvigorate a pocket park. In this artwork the colour red signifies a continuous connection to traditional Chinese culture. Scholar rocks were traditionally used as ornaments to connect poets and scholars to nature and as a source of inspiration.
Installed 2023
Find it at Luke Ave Burwood
Yenmara bembul-ra (walking on earth) Toby Bishop, Jasmine Sarin, 2023
The artists acknowledge the interwoven connection to country with hints of flora, earth, people and culture within each flag design. The natural line work of scribbly gums (Eucalyptus haemastoma) is the main feature throughout all flags. This is in reference to the crisscrossed tracks which formed trade, social and ceremonial networks for the Wangal people.
Installed 2023
Burwood Park
1971.TS, Christina Huynh 2023
The artwork celebrates Lorna Hutchings, the first female bus driver to work at Burwood Bus Depot from 1971. The Australian Reed Warblers represent a meeting place where Sydney and Western Sydney come together, highlighting the rich diversity of Burwood’s community. The yarn denotes Lorna’s love of knitting and the yarn bombing street art movement where YARN BOMB was an attempt to reclaim or personalise public space.
Installed 2023
Find it at the Burwood Bus Depot Parramatta Road
The Burwood Nest, Kim Siew, 2023
Driven by a desire to enable creative sharing and accessible art, the Burwood Nest provides a place for community to gather, and inspiration to abound. Taking inspiration from the form and function of a nest, the Burwood Nest is a sculptural installation which provides a unique opportunity for artists to respond to the site, by applying graphic elements or existing artworks to a dynamic canvas. Gallery First Commission - Kate Constantin, November 2023-November 2024
Pictured - Happy Nest, December 2024 Created collaboratively by 21 artists with disability from Studio ARTES & Jeff McCann
Installed 2023
Find it at Burwood Park, Drift (ground plane)
Canada Bay Council
Untitled, Reko Rennie, Curator Matt Poll, 2022
Installed 2022
Find it at Concord Oval
Windows Through Five Dock, Fintan Magee, 2024
Installed 2024
Find it at Charles Heath Reserve, Five Dock
Eucalypt, Maddison Gibbs, 2025
Installed 2025
Find it at Concord Oval
Welcome to Country, Metropolitan Land Council
A digital welcome to country showcasing cultural practice, available for screening on the scoreboards at the oval during events. Videos available online and onsite at events and local signage.
Cumberland Council
Show and Tell, Shireen Taweel 2024
Show and Tell (2024) was designed in collaboration with local school children, who were asked to create symbolic representation of the objects they have encountered along their metaphoric paths to places and cultures, real and imagined. Paths often appear in children’s stories and folklore. Paths help to navigate the often uncertain process of crossing over to another place, culture and community.
Installed 2024
Find it at Auburn North Public School
Badu Bayumi, Dennis Golding 2022
Waterhole – water is the recurring theme throughout the school engagement and conversations about place featured in the workshop experience delivered by elder Chris Tobin. Together, these symbols share knowledge about cultural practice, sustainability and survival of Aboriginal people. Badu Bayumi is the language name meaning water tunes. As each of the artworks centres stories around water and how it creates growth. We are reminded of how Country provides this resource for all its people and visitors who call Darug Nura home.
Installed 2022, Auburn
Case Study
Cumberland City Council developed a case study (2023) to showcase best practice when working with Aboriginal artists and community.
Embrace Monuments, Nuha Saad 2023
Embrace Monuments (2023) is an art installation featuring colourful wooden posts in different sizes and heights. It engages with people of all ages in the community adding a vibrancy to the street and fostering a positive and optimistic neighbourhood space. The design draws from the universal architectural concept of posts, totems, or columns which are used in various cultures to create a sense of place an community. Using colour, ornament, pattern and form, this installation symbolises the diverse cultural connections within the local Cumberland area.
Installed 2023
Find it at Melton Street, Auburn
Future Message, Kalanjay Dhir and Gillian Kayrooz 2024
Future Message (2024) artists Gillian Kayrooz and Kalanjay Dhir worked with Auburn Girls High School students to create personal symbols and emoticons to convey messages to their future selves. These emoticon messages have become an artwork on Macquarie Road, exploring cross cultural and temporal communication. The students coded messages line the footpath, inviting community to decode the meaning and find inspiration as they walk by.
Installed 2024
Find it at Macquarie Road, North Auburn
Baduwa, Close to Water, Leanne Tobin and Shay Tobin 2022
The artists created eight stencils of local fauna that were pressed into the pavement at the school gates. The work represents the animals found in and around Duck Creek and Duck River.
Installed 2022
Find it at Adderley Street, Auburn North Primary School
Strathfield Council
Powell Creek Bridge Public Art: Fly Wave, Carrier Wave, Commute
by Chris Fox Studios and Mike Daly, 2023, 2025
All three bridges are connected via the overarching theme of migration. Since time immemorial, animals and people have been migrating all over the world, at a multitude of scales. Thousands of years ago, people moved with the changing seasons and weather systems - to find food and water. In modern times, the migration of people is triggered by a magnitude of push and pull factors. However, the drivers are almost always to better one’s life - be that economically or socially.
This overarching theme resonates with the unique theme of each individual bridge, and provides a woven narrative that people from all backgrounds can connect to. Not only are the statistics associated with migration often surprising and interesting, but each migratory journey carries individuals’ stories of change and adventure.
Fly Wave, 2023
Chris Fox Studios and Mike Daly
For millennia, Curlew Sandpipers flew every year from these wetlands to Siberia and back again; a dangerous 27,000 km migration that takes over two months. Flyway is a light installation that visualises these epic journeys at 200,000 times normal speed, carefully tracing the birds’ eternal ritual of departing in March to mid-April and returning between August and November.
Installed 2023. Find it at Lorraine Street, Powells Creek North Strathfield
Carrier Wave, 2023
Chris Fox Studios and Mike Daly
For tens of thousands of years the Wangal people developed and passed down ancient knowledge systems that are grounded in sustainable living and a deep care for Country. More recently, migrants to Strathfield have brought other perspectives and knowledge systems to the area. Carrier Wave is a light installation that conveys the depth and wisdom that these diverse cultures bring to Strathfield through a continuous transmission of Morse code: the earliest form of high-speed international communication.
Installed 2023. Find it at Hamilton Street, Powells Creek North Strathfield
Commute, 2025
Chris Fox Studios and Mike Daly
The Arnott’s Biscuit Factory opened here in 1908 on sparsely populated Wangal country. The factory was the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, employing 2,500 workers at its peak - the vast proportion of the local community.
'Commute’ visualises the daily journeys of thousands of people employed at the factory during its 89-year history. The light installation activates twice per day, with ghost-like forms migrating towards the site at dawn and away from it at dusk.
Installed 2025. Find it at George Street, North Strathfield
Traditional Aboriginal Stone Tools of the Wangal People, Chris Edwards, 2024
Inspired by the Wangal people's traditional stone tools, this artwork reflects the heritage of Australia's first building hand tools. As you walk through Homebush, these elements connect us to the history and craftsmanship of the Wangal community, fostering pride and a sense of safety. By showcasing these cultural artefacts, we honour the Wangal legacy, making visitors feel welcome and protected.
Installed 2024
Find it at Bridge Road, Homebush
N-S-E-W Warren Langley and Dennis Golding, 2024
N-S-E-W is a destination artwork which acknowledges the station’s role as a point of coming and going and its multidirectional arrivals and departures. The history of movement embedded in the site is reflected in the mirrored surfaces of the sculpture, engaging the viewer and the surroundings in a constant and multilayered conversation while its form evokes stacked sand grains from the ubiquitous sandstones of the Sydney Basin.
The nighttime transformation of the sculpture appears as a glowing structure with a graphic design developed in consultation with Kamilaroi / Gamilaraay artist Dennis Golding and is based upon the oxide patterns of these Sydney sandstones.
Installed 2024
Find it at Homebush Station