Artist: Martine Corompt
Year: 2014
Location: Sunshine Train Station Overpass Bridge
In this delicate series of silhouettes, artist Martine Corompt pays tribute to Sunshine's local indigenous plant life, including the Sunshine Diuris orchid. This piece acknowledges that rail corridors and reserves are important sanctuary for native plant and wildlife.
These screens were delivered in 2014 as part of the Regional Rail Link: Footscray - Deer Park project team's Community Identity Program. This program was established in collaboration with RMIY University School of Art, and includes representation from Brimbank and Maribyrnong City Councils.
Western Wilderness celebrates the wild botanical landscape of Sunshine featuring the diverse indigenous plant life of the area, incorporating both common and endangered species. Plants such as Brachyscome dentate (Lobe-seed Daisy) Acaena (Sheep1 s Burr) Diuris fragrantissima (Sunshine Orchid), Chrysocephalum apiculatum (Common Everlasting), and Leptorhynchos squamatus (Scaly Buttons) will be transformed into giant graphic illustrations, allowing the spectator to walk between them where the change in scale from their usual size, transforms the images of plants from the everyday into the fantastic.
Rail corridors and reserves, while seemingly neglected or abandoned, have become an important sanctuary for many species of native wildlife, and so Western Wilderness acknowledges the role of Sunshine Station in the ongoing preservation of many indigenous species as well as forefronting many plants species that would otherwise go unnoticed to the general public, either because they are too small, look like weeds, or are now only found in areas that are inaccessible.
The illustrations of Western Wilderness depict the wonder and beauty of something generally overlooked, but not undervalued.