Two openings



At lunchtime yesterday we drove some Ks west of our comfort zone for an event at Banksia Road Primary School staged by the Greenacre Communities for Kids Project. It made me realise what a white-bread neighbourhood I live in. Eighty percent of the women and quite a few young girls wore hijabs, and a noticeable percentage of the European faces spoke with east European accents. Our reason for visiting was the opening of an exhibition of paintings that resulted from Yulla Bulla, a project where adults and children of Arabic background met with an Aboriginal artist and an Iraqi calligrapher and produced work that incorporated motifs from both traditions. No photos, sorry, because I cleverly left my camera at home, so you'll have to take my word that the images were fascinating. I was particularly impressed by a painting of a kangaroo, whose slightly odd outlines were explained by their spelling out the Arabic for kangaroo. The calligraphy teacher was there -- apologies again, I didn't catch his name. When I said, intending it as a confession of profound ignorance, that I looked at the Arabic script on the paintings and saw just beautiful shapes, he was delighted -- because of course calligraphy is not handwriting, but an art, which he was keen to demonstrate. He did two beautiful versions of my name. The first says Jonathan Shaw (reading right to left); the second, in much more elaborate script, simply Jonathan.






After an excellent cheap lunch at the An Restaurant ('So pho so good') we returned to the inner city and I headed off to another opening, of 'Preposterous Saints: The saints the church didn't want you to know about ', paintings by Chaia Fein, a friend whom I've recently met again after more than 30 years. When I last saw her she was embarking on a career as a jeweller. Since then she has lived for years in Italy and England, working as jeweller, painter, sculptor. This exhibition has been brewing since her time in Naples when she – a 'good Jewish girl' – was fascinated by the multiplicity of saints. Her preposterous saints are a world apart from the irreverent piety of LOLSaints, but they are wonderfully alive and various, even chaotic, in the manner of Hindu gods or ... Catholic saints. There's a painting for every month, each of at least one saint, and a short 'Life' of each of the featured saints with a list of all the saints whose feasts occur during the month. January has the Unwholesome Trinity of St Nephrophagous, St Cadaverous and St Posthumous; October has the Seven Deadly Saints, including Saints Malicious, Querulous and Tedious. My birthday saint, St Scandalous, didn't merit a painting or a "Life", but if I had to choose a patron it would have to be June's saint, St Oblivious, who walked through life unaware of the temptations that assailed him and finally sank quietly into his grave without ever realising that constantly throughout his life his village had been the scene of appalling atrocities. This is "Saint Oblivious Plagued by Demons":



All but one of the paintings was sold by the time I arrived at the opening, which must be some kind of record. Chaia is planning a book.

The exhibition is at Gallery HM in Redfern.

Posted: Sun - May 17, 2009 at 01:55 PM           |

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