- The body language, you know, isn't it so beautiful. I don't know about Queenie so much. But it's just...
- You're right, because it's like one person's looking directly at the camera.
- She's doing a photo op, yeah.
- Yeah, who's done it a million times. And the other one is kind of this, this kind of self-awareness, this humility almost.
- Yeah.
- So it's Albert Namatjira receiving the coronation medal from Her Majesty, from "Albert's Story" series, 2014.
- And what do we have here?
- For such, you know, for such flat dimension, they're incredibly expressive, aren't they?
- Albert and Vincent. There you go, beautiful.
- Yeah. I love these. I really love these. What do you think of this?
- I think it's very evocative. It's very close and deep.
- There's something beautiful, I think, in just the gesture here of the arm.
- The gesture, and also the eye.
- The shoulder.
- And the eye to eye, you know, the eyes are so intently looking into each other in a way that...
- Now, oh, these are great. The William Yang documentation of Mardi Gras.
- Yes.
- Yeah. These are fantastic. This fits so nicely into an exhibition about love stories, doesn't it?
- Yeah. They're historic pictures as well. I mean this is how it all began.
- Mardi Gras is such a beautiful celebration of just incredible creativity, as well as love. I love it.
- And abandon.
- And abandon, yeah, great.
- It's good for us, isn't it. Peter Allen. It's a great shot of him.
- It is.
- It's a particularly nice black and white shot. What about these?
- I think these are gorgeous. I've got to say they're beautifully hung, aren't they?
- Yeah, fantastically displayed.
- Yeah.
- Impressive.
- You know what I love about the inclusion of this too, is about two creative forces, the love and respect and honouring of creative forces. Isn't it interesting, though, how much, I mean, they have very different styles and yet as such good friends, they obviously really fire off each other, but that didn't interrupt or didn't... It just energised, but it didn't, it didn't interrupt their own creative development or flow, but it actually further supercharged it I suppose. It's just empowering. I love that.
- Mmm. It's just really one of the highlights for me.
- Why?
- Well, everyone knows this couple, Anna Volska and John Bell. He's been such a regular traveller to Canberra too, you know, to perform with Bell Shakespeare. And I don't know, all that warmth, that thing he has on stage, and her, you know, it radiates from this picture, the relationship between them, but also their relationship with you. When you look at this, you know.
- It's very intimate, isn't it?
- It is.
- It's almost...
- It's intimate but it's also, I wouldn't say, I'm not saying performative, but it's, it's like we're there as well.
- Oh, look at this one. I'm just going to stop here for a minute. Bryan Brown and Rachel...
- Ward.
- Ward. You know what I love about this? I really love it. A minor detail, but I love the fact that the blazer she's wearing has kind of got ink spots or something on it, you know. It's kind of like a bit tatty, and I love the way she's looking at him. Just, she's just such a, a comfortable person in her own skin. And I kind of get the sense that, from this image, this portrait, that he has huge amount of respect for her, or am I reading too much into it?
- Probably not.
- Well what do you see?
- No, I agree. I can only go, I think it's, you know, here is two people who spend their lives in front of cameras. And so to some extent, I'd say, well, you know, there's a confection in the image or at least there's the possibility of a confection, but I'm not suggesting the love is confected. I'm just saying that that has a sort of a, you know, a kind of a magazine feel about it.
- I don't think so at all. In fact, quite the opposite. If you're going to, if you're going to pose, for a start, you'd wear a jacket that didn't have blotches of ink on it, and something that fits you properly.
- Now here's one that, when we looked at it before, we just... This is a spectacular piece of work.
- This is my favourite of this exhibition. Stan and Tracey Holmes, Stan Grant, I think are one of the most incredible love stories in Australia. I remember I was at Channel Seven when he was just smashed by the media, when he, when their relationship became public, because it had been secret for a little while and he'd left his wife and, you know, there were children involved and, ah...
- Do we really have to go into that?
- Well, he was just treated so badly. They both were. It was despicable. Anyway, okay, I won't talk about it anymore, but it is my favourite.
- It's a beautiful picture. I mean...
- But see, you're just looking you're just looking at the aesthetics of it and saying it's a beautiful picture, yeah, nice.
- It's not just the aesthetic, it's the people, I agree, but I think it's a really bold picture. I mean, I think it's very painterly...
- Very painterly.
- And it's extraordinary that the way it's been given that kind of smoky, you can see the sun is very low, presumably at dusk. And it's been given that kind of soft, smoky light that you can sometimes get, you know, in the bush, late in the afternoon. And you can feel the temperature because of the furs. You can feel the warmth in a sense between these two. I think it's really, it's the sort of picture that makes you smile when you look at it. You don't see that so often.
- Oh, here, look at this. I absolutely love the Jimmy Barnes and Jane. Now we know these roses are roses that he grew himself. And, as the curators were telling us, it's their nephew who took the photograph. There's something just gorgeous about that, isn't there?
- It's really extraordinary, actually.
- Yeah, yup, yup. You know what we're seeing in this exhibition, that's just occurred to me, because it is love stories, and we're seeing such, you know, in many of these pieces, beautiful expressions of love, something we're seeing and you see it in the John Bell one with his wife Anna as well, is an incredible... And the same with Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown, this respect, love, intimacy, coming from the men for their women, you know, their women are actually quite strong figures, strong, sort of looking out at the viewer whilst the man in the portrait seems a bit more engaged in the intimacy of the moment. That's unusual.
- Is it?
- Well, don't you think? They've captured, this exhibition has a few of those sorts of moments. I think that's interesting. And it's sort of like, because the exhibition brings together those moments, and it's the same with the Stan Grant one and the Tracey Holmes, that beautiful intimacy you're getting from the male and sort of the warmth and respect and adoration you sense. You think I'm reading too much into it?
- No, no, I agree with you. I agree with you.
- I don't think you do.
- Well, you don't, you sort of... You don't, do you?
- I do.
- Well, you don't have to--
- I know, but I do agree.
- You don't have to but it's fact. But don't you see that?
- Yeah, no, it's a good observation.
- Oh, thank you.
- Quite iconical in the exhibition, which is your point, right?
- Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Well, I think we should be a bit loving at this stage, don't you think?
- Well worth cooking. Look, there's you, there's me. It actually does look a bit like me.
- [Virginia] It does, actually, yeah. It's got the same kind of hair at the front...
- [Mark] Yeah.
- [Virginia] No, it's quite...
- [Mark] And the same sort of tilt of the head, actually.
