The Big Raspberry

Melbourne Arts Centre

The Melbourne Arts Centre, venue for the Melbourne Ring Cycle, is called the Big Raspberry by locals and you do indeed feel as if you are in a raspberry as you decend into its depths. Most of the wall space is occupied by a permanent collection of very large works by aboriginal artists and the likes of Sydney Nolan, but even they have a hard time competing with the acres of red and brass/copper.

Paintings with sound installation

My Grane pictures now hang on what little space remained. We had to be inventive to hang anything at all and some of the pictures simply didn't fit. 


The remainder of works in the WagnerLicht Exhibition are being installed today, ready for the media event and opening tomorrow.
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A horse for our (Ring Cycle) times

Grane, dashing through the musical flames

As I look at my previous posts I can't help but think my images for the Melbourne Ring Exhibition are prescient. Grane gallops through the flames as NSW burns.

As I write the air is full of smoke and we are told the weather may be even worse than forecast for tomorrow, the day the fire-fighters have said will be the worst day of the week.

I read that Neil Armfield, Director of the Melbourne Ring Cycle, refers to the environmental catastrophe on our doorstep in his version of the Ring. I hope that it speaks to opera patrons who are in positions of power and inspires them to devote their energies to saving the planet for their grandchildren. Is that too much to ask?

Brünnhilde's horse Grane

Brünnhilde's horse Grane. Collage of Intaglio etchings

Wagner's Ring Cycle will be performed in Melbourne in November and all sorts of Ring related activities are planned. I have just finished a series of collages featuring Brünnhilde's horse Grane which will be exhibited in the  WagnerLicht Exhibition at the Melbourne Arts Centre, opening 15 November. Toi Toi Toi to Opera Australia for their first Ring Cycle.

The Grane series is online here.