Mural
New Mural
We recently commissioned indigenous muralist Merindah Ganya to paint a mural at Oatlands. The idea for this project was born within our Deadly Kids Club, led by Kirsten Trewarn and Leahana Kelsall. The Deadly Kids club provided some ideas for the mural, expressing that they wanted the mural to relate to our school and our students, they also had input into the colours. Merindah Ganya completed the mural in one day, spray painting it free hand, quite incredible. She also told us what the symbols in the mural mean. Here is a summary of her explanation.
The mural is painted from a birds-eye viewpoint. The first symbols that catch your eye are the large circular patterns, there are 5 of them and they represent our 5 school values, Respect, Effort, Kindness, Resilience and Creativity. Next you may notice some C or U-shaped symbols, they represent the students. Imagine a child sitting cross-legged in the sand and imagine the shape they would create in the sand, this is represented by these symbols. Each of these symbols is different in shape, size and colour highlighting that everyone is unique and special. Within the background of the mural, you can see many wavey lines. These represent water. Oatlands is on Bunurong land and Bunurong people hold a profound, ancestral connection to water in this area. Finally, you will notice large rainbow-like symbols on the right side of the mural. These symbols are journey lines and there are 7 of them, one for each year level. The first one is the largest and most prominent, representing our preps. The transition from kinder is significant and the growth and development of our prep students during their first year of school is immense. Each journey line connects to the next as our students move through primary school until the reach the Grade 6 journey line. This journey line goes off the end of the wall, symbolising that for our Grade 6 students their journey at Oatlands Primary School comes to end and their journey continues elsewhere.
Our new mural is located on the back of the Stuart Daly Gymnasium and is best viewed from our school oval. Please feel free to enjoy it at any time.
