Oran Park Library: public art celebrates the ghosts of motor racing

Artworks at the library

The Oran Park Library has several public artworks that commemorate the former Oran Park motorway on the site. These extraordinary public art installations celebrate the memories of the  Oran Park Raceway, which closed in 2010.

The commissioning of the artworks was a collaboration between Guppy Art Management & Camden Council.

The Artworks

Moto Caelifera Eclectica by James Corbett

James Corbett describes himself as a car part sculptor and is based in Brisbane, Queensland.

James Corbett created these works in 2018, and he describes this installation as a ‘challenging commission’ on his blog. He writes:

to create two large racing grasshoppers in double quick time for the new Oran Park library near Camden in western Sydney.  This used to be a rural area, but was known to me since I was a child for just one reason.  It had a car racing track.  All the big names raced there, and I used to rabidly read all about their exploits in my eagerly awaited, latest copy of ‘Racing Car News.’ I couldn’t get enough of that stuff when I was twelve years old.

The track is gone and the pastures are disappearing under houses, but there are still just enough paddocks of dry yellow grass about to give a feel for the history of the district. I wanted to pay tribute to both, that soon to be gone rural feel, and the rich racing history.  Those dry grassy areas make me think of grasshoppers, flies, locusts and Hereford cattle.  And Insects seem sort of mechanical, and built for a purpose. Form following function, like racing cars.  Well the ones I like anyway.

Corbett created two works as part of the installation. He calls one ‘The Green Kawasaki Grasshopper’ and it is attached to the wall. In constructing the works, he writes:

The Formula cars of the era had riveted aluminium sheet chassis, and I wanted to reflect that. Hence the riveted abdomens.  I wanted them to look like they could work like machines. I cut up a yellow Hyundai and found a green I liked on a Daihatsu. When I found a Kawasaki engine for the green one, it had to be given the late Greg Handsford’s race number 2.

The second hanging artwork Corbett calls ‘Beechy Grasshopper’ and it has a 4.8-metre wingspan with wings made of ‘glass car windows’. More information about the installation can be found on Corbett’s website.

Tracks by Danielle Mate Sullivan

Sullivan is a Sydney-based Indigenous artist in large-scale mural design and public art. 

Mr Rev Head The Local by Freya Jobbins

Freya Jobbins is a Sydney-based contemporary Australian multidisciplinary artist whose art practice includes assemblage, installation, video, collage and printmaking. 

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Speedster by Justin Sayarath

Sydney-based artist Justin Sayarath has several installations around the metropolitan area where he ‘combines both his technical skill of visual arts and graphic design to create and collaborate in the public and commercial domains’.

The official opening in 2018

Updated on 2 May 2023. Originally posted 5 September 2022.