Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess

MURRAY AND BURGESS is the creative partnership of Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess, both National Art School graduates, and typically create large-scale installations that address environmental issues and human rights.

The work is beautiful on many levels. Bright yellow painted bandages wrap bushfire damaged branches in a gesture of love and care. These have been created over time and with purpose, including at a community Daffodil Day event at Eden Gardens which helped raise awareness for Cancer Council NSW.

Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess have created their first installation at Eden Unearthed - a sculptural bunch of flowers, A Bouquet for Anne. The location is a place of remembrance and hope, and the work celebrates the life of a lost friend. It has a heart of gold.

The site-specific work, with its daffodil yellow ‘stems’, reaches up towards the heavens, intermingling with the canopy of Gleditsia ‘Sunburst’ like golden rays. This iridescent tone, used by Burgess and Murray in other iterations along the theme, is reflected in the bronze name plates that are hung on the wall behind, and the golden glow is echoed in the nearby work of Andy Totman and his Hidden Treasures, which use a variety of metallic foils in their rock forms.

The artists appreciated the opportunity to respond to an established garden with distinct ‘rooms’, especially a retreat devoted to memory.

The work symbolises the joy of living, and is a celebration of the present moment, whilst accepting the ephemerality of life. In many ways it echoes the cycle of daffodils themselves.

Find out more about Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess and their work 'Bouquet for Anne' here.