I went to see a play being performed in the lower downstairs space, "Ginger Mick in Gallipoli," an adaptation of a story in verse by C. J. Dennis apparently carried by many of the Australian Anzacs in WW1, telling of a Melbourne ne'er-do-well who comes into his own in war: Ev'ry feller is a gold mine if yeh take an work 'im right. (He falls at Gallipoli of course.) It was brilliantly performed, by turns hilarious and very moving, and gets me a lot closer to understanding "the Anzac spirit."I had also read about an exhibition at fortyfivedownstairs: big drawings by Peter Daverington called The Dervish Series, inspired by the Sufi whirlers. Fine, I guess - I'm not sure I get Sufism.
But the big discovery was a second exhibit, large watercolors by an artist named Elisabeth Bodey, an attempt to respond to the Aboriginal sense of place she encountered in Central Australia. (The above, 121 x 140cm, wasn't in the show - though it's in the mini-catalog I bought - but it's the only one of which there is an image online.) I fell in love with several of the large watercolors, always with a blue border like a rug and an interior teeming with oranges and whites, swirls and loops all outlined in liquid watercolor lines. Very fine. A rare vision of Australia as a whole, blue cities on the edge of an energetic red center. I'd buy one (though not the one above) if I had the budget!
