In 2018, I was invited by QAGOMA to respond to a selection of artworks from their collection. It was a thing they were doing at the time with local writers. My response would be published alongside the artwork, which all felt very thrilling. QAGOMA and the entire South Brisbane Cultural Precinct has been a source of inspiration for me since childhood. I remember going to these galleries - seeing some of these artworks - when I was very young with my grandmother. They felt untouchable to me then. To be in conversation with them felt daunting and miraculous. It remains something I treasure.
I’ve republished my responses here. The artwork is represented digitally, but of course, you need to see the real thing. Take the morning off and go to QAGOMA. By yourself. And sit and look at art for a good long while and have a chat to it.
All of the artwork here was sourced from qagoma.qld.gov.au - and I do urge you to visit. My thanks and respect to the artists.
Judgement Day by Richard Bell
Enter an Australian artist. (DIRECTOR’S NOTE: What’s the intention here? Having trouble casting. Male? Female? Black? White? Asian? Refugee?)
ARTIST begins work. (DIRECTOR’S NOTE: Again, more please. Just need a bit of help to see your vision. Writer? Painter? Dancer? WHAT is their art?)
ARTIST talks about the origins of their work and provides a context. (DIR: Again, Dave, having trouble seeing it. Plays usually have dialogue mate - write us some words. We want to KNOW this artist, to FEEL who they are. Yeah?)
Behind ARTIST, images of Australia. (DIR: Not sure we have the budget for full AV mate, sorry. Can photocopy some stock images to hand out, maybe? Or put in the program? Sydney Opera House, the Bridge, Suncorp Stadium, XXXX Brewery - that kind of thing.)
ARTIST I am Australian.
DIR: Not sure we could get the rights but how would you feel if this last line was sung? I’m thinking the Peter Allan song. Everyone loves a musical. Bums on seats mate. Bums on seats.
ARTIST exits.
DIR: Consider cutting this scene for time.
Lamp Lit by Rosalie Gascoigne
When I was a kid we travelled from Toowoomba - or Kingaroy or Cambooya - to the Sunshine Coast and back a few times a year to see my grandparents. My Dad’d get nervous driving at night, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. From the backseat I’d see him lean forward in the chair, his chest almost touching the steering wheel, peering over the dashboard, as if half a ruler closer to the road would help him. He’d swear when we hit roadworks. Our headlights would hit the blister yellow signs and reflect back on to the ceiling of the car, like when sunlight hits a swimming pool.
As a young man I spent a lot of hours on the Warrego, driving back and forth from Toowoomba to Brisbane at all times of the day. At first it felt like independence, but the novelty wore off after the fifteenth time. Some nights I shouldn’t have driven. Some nights I wouldn’t listen to my mother, and I put my faith in a Red Bull, which tickled me behind my eyeballs. When I hit roadworks, I’d stop, bleary eyed, the brightness from the yellow signs hitting the back of my brain.
Now I drive from Brisbane to Coffs Harbour, and I am my father. My wife is beside me and my child and dog are in the back. I don’t mind driving at night, but when we hit roadworks I swear. The signs read CAUTION SLOW ROADWORK AHEAD but I mostly just see the yellow.
Always when we arrive they ask how was the drive and I never remember much about it. Only the roadwork, only the signs.
Children of the Pearce Family, Burdekin by Max Dupain
A Brechtian scene. At the dining room table.
BANKER We’ve had a very generous offer.
FARMER Yes?
BANKER And I know what you’re going to say -
FARMER No.
BANKER Yes but listen. It’s very generous. Enough to set you up somewhere nicer. At the coast. Go to the beach every day. Sand between your toes. You won’t know yourself.
FARMER Sand gets everywhere.
BANKER It’s a generous offer. And all your neighbours have conceded. They’re happy.
FARMER They’ll floor this place and dig a hole big enough to put a city in and they’ll pull out black rock.
BANKER And they’ll employ your sons and daughters and grandchildren and make this country great. Truly great. And you won’t stop them.
Behind them are the photos on the wall.
Stucco Home by Howard Arkley
I know this house. My Aunt Margaret, now deceased, lived in a house like this in Wynnum. If my grandmother’s life had been different, I think she would’ve lived in a house like this.
The house is a cake. One day, the gods will take a knife to it and cut it, revealing its gooey, delicious centre. The walls are lined with sugar. The lounge room smells like bubble bath. There are fish fingers in the freezer.
A small mouse lives in the corner of the pantry. The matriarch leaves out crumbs especially. She calls the mouse Wilbur.
In the Summer if you sit on the couch you’ll stick to it. In the Winter a gas heater throws out enough heat to keep a sliver of your ankles burning while the rest of you freezes to death.
There are pictures everywhere of family members. An Uncle who died in the War. A family portrait from when I was younger.
I’m a giant in the house now. I change light bulbs to be useful. When she’s not looking I slip into the back and take a bite out of the walls.
Rosewater. Butter. Cream. Light and airy. I want to eat my childhood whole. To feel full. To feel home.
Panorama of Brisbane by JA Clarke
This ambitious panorama, on loan from the Queensland Museum, is Queensland’s most significant nineteenth-century painting. It was commissioned by the Queensland Government for the colony’s exhibit at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880.The purpose of Clarke’s ‘grand picture’ was, in the rhetoric of the time, ‘to record the progress of civilisation in the colonial capital since European settlement 56 years earlier’. This ‘progress’ is evident in the wharves, warehouses, factories, shops, churches, residences, parks, transport and, above all, in a series of fine public buildings.
WE WERE BASTARDS AND PROGRESS IS A LIE AND I FEEL NOTHING BUT GUILT FOR THE SINS OF MY ANCESTORS AND NOTHING BUT APOLOGIES FOR EVERY THOUGHT AND BREATH. I DID NOTHING TO EARN MY GOOD FORTUNE AND THEY DID NOTHING TO EARN THEIR BAD. EVERY GLIMMER OF AFFECTION IS UNDERSCORED MY PAIN OF THE PAST OH GOD WE CAN’T FIX IT WE’RE STILL BLEEDING IN SILENCE OH GOD WE CAN NEVER GO BACK WE’RE STILL BLEEDING SILENTLY THE WOUND IS STILL OPEN WE MIUST HEAL WE MUST HEA
Bad Dad by Michael Zavros
Everyone responds to this one.
I saw it as a boy and wanted to swim in the pool. I saw it as a teenager and desired the man. I saw it as a uni student and provided Very Intelligent and Insightful Commentary on the re-imagination of Greek myth. I saw it as a father and felt the familiar glint of self-absorption.
But when I fall off the edge and become intimate with the painting, I’m betrayed. There’s no way I could have seen this painting as a boy. Or a teenager. Or uni student. It’s too recent.
The blue of the pool is so piercing it’s punctured my sense of time. This thing re-shaped the contours in the map of my life to make room for itself.
I know the self-absorption. I understand the myth. I want to kiss the man. But mostly I want to dive into those blue waters, refreshed, forgotten, cooled by the isolation of narcissism. I am the bad dad. Let me swim.
Untitled by Doreen Reid Nakamarra
When I drive across the country I turn to my passenger and I say: ‘Bloody flat, isn’t it?’
Compared to Europe, where the car inhales to squeeze down narrow alleys. Compared to America, where the red dirt shapes itself into Old Testament monuments.
Home is flat and colourless.
But if I spend long enough in the car, twilight falls. And the sky, blushing from the land’s nudity, goes from blue to pink and orange and then darkest deepest black.
The land takes on ridges. The flatness unearths itself and makes bumps. And now there is a long time between background and foreground, and the land on either side of the road yawns into space. Home is where the stars are close enough to touch, and the chill from the Earth rises up to kiss you on the cheek.
I turn to my passenger, but they’re asleep. The secret stays mine for a little longer.
Hi there, thanks for reading. I just wanted to let you know that in a couple of weeks I’ll be posting responses to readers questions. So if you want to ask me anything, simply make sure you’re subscribed and then reply to any e-mail from me. Questions can be about anything, but I’m particularly interested in questions that are impossible to answer…however you want to interpret that! Ask me anything!