Michael Donnelly
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Artist Michael Donnelly
Title 'Baptisms on the Yarra, Pound Bend, near Warrandyte, Easter Saturday, 2005.'
Year 2005 - 6
Medium Oil on Board
Height 1220mm
Width 2740mm
   
From the Exhibition 'Other Lands', Glen Eira City Council Gallery. Caulfield, Vic. 9 - 19 July 2009
Previously Exhibited Blake Prize Exceptions, Chase Contemporary and Tribal Art Gallery, Annandale, NSW, 2006; Ashburton Uniting Church Artists at CTM, Centre for Theology & Ministry, Parkville, 2013.
Collection of Ashburton Uniting Church
Photographed by David McArthur, Parallax Photography

The painting is a celebration of the baptism of the artist's two oldest children (Thomas and Beattie) in the Yarra River at Pound Bend, near Warrandyte on the Easter Saturday of 2005. The painting is a 'fish eye' panorama of the Yarra, winding down from its headwaters in the eastern mountains (top right corner of the work) through the hinterland and Warrandyte (lower right) to the city of Melbourne where it flows into Port Phillip Bay (top left corner). Following mediaeval narrative traditions, the art work shows the main characters at various points in the story of the day at Pound Bend. We see cars wending their way from Melbourne to the Pound Bend car park, people carrying equipment to the site up and down a path at the centre of the painting, gathering for the baptism service led by Rev Graeme Harrison of the Ashburton Uniting Church, involved with the baptism in the river, and partaking of a picnic lunch afterwards. Paralleling this progress are images of the life, death and resurrection of Christ borrowed from the works of the Italian Renaissance painter, Piero della Francesca. See Detail Images Next. The painting may be viewed at the Ashburton Uniting Church 'LightHouse', Ashburn Grove, Ashburton. Vic.

 

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