Wesley Enoch and David McAllister

David McAllister AC (b. 1963) and Wesley Enoch AM (b. 1969) have been together since 2007, but spent over a decade living in separate cities. McAllister was the Australian Ballet's artistic director and lived in Melbourne; Enoch was in either Sydney or Brisbane, as the director of the Sydney Festival, and as the director of the Queensland Theatre Company before that. But they maintained a policy of phoning one another daily, and of never going more than three weeks without seeing each other – somewhere. Peter Brew-Bevan wanted his portrait of them to capture this together-but-apart aspect of their relationship, while at the same time telling of 'their very strong bond and love for each other'. This is suggested by their poses and body language: seated together but looking away from each other and connected only through their hands. The composition is partly inspired by paintings by Edward Hopper as well as some of David Hockney's 1970s portraits, wherein couples are shown in simultaneous attitudes of isolation and intimacy. The retro hotel room setting further signifies lives spent in separate cities and on the road, and alludes to collective experiences of disconnection and separation during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The esky in which McAllister appears to be icing his foot symbolises his 'hard physical commitment and dedication to dance, spending pretty much every night with his feet in ice', while Wesley's t-shirt is a statement of his pride as a Noonuccal Nuugi man and his uncompromising advocacy for First Nations culture and creativity.

The 2021 Sydney Festival marked the end of Enoch's tenure as festival director. McAllister left the Australian Ballet in late 2020 after almost 40 years with the company. 'I have Wesley by my side,' he wrote at the time, 'and I'm looking forward to us becoming old men together.'

Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM and Neil Archibald 2021
© Peter Brew-Bevan