Ballarat’s art gallery

The gallery was opened in 1890 and was impressive considering the size of the town. Art work was displayed in mixed combinations. For someone like me who doesn’t linger by older examples, this forced me to notice all work on show. Most art was Australian with a splash of English artists. 

Acland street

Most tourists strolled along this St Kilda street’s southern end after a Luna Park visit. Crowds dawdled by shop fronts, peered into restaurants or entered the many cake shops that enticed customers with their calorie-laden goods.

A footstep into New Guinea

When I returned to Brisbane’s GOMA modern art gallery a year later, every display was different. Most impressive to me were the New Guinea Asmat weavers. The weavers secretly created masks using ornaments to link their sculptures to a deceased person.

A wander through Paradise Garden

I was ready to leave Melbourne’s State Theatre after seeing the Arthur Boyd collection, until I rounded a corner on to Sidney Nolan’s Paradise Garden.

Singapore’s National Art Gallery

Sharing half of the building with the Supreme Court, the art gallery was a disappointment. While housed in a grand and well-maintained building, locating the art itself, was like wandering through a rabbit warren.

Aboriginal Stringy Bark Paintings

Nonggirrnga Marawila — Thunderman raining down

Along with rock paintings, bark paintings were among the original art works created by Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Victoria

This art gallery was nothing like any I’ve ever visited. Away from Melbourne in the Yarra Valley, the gallery was set in a bush landscape where giant gum trees reared over buildings. A path led past a derrick house where Sydney Nolan once stored many of his paintings. At the old farmhouse, we wandered through the rooms where the Reed family once lived. In the 1960s they built a unique architectural dream house. Now, both buildings form separate parts of the main gallery.