Space between explores the experience of “first sighting”, the short instants in time between realisation and emotion: realisation when facing new unexpected situations (people, foreign lands, events) and emotion resulting from personal attempts to understand these situations.

In their first show together, Cathy, Sandra, Ron and Patrick present paintings and sculptures that express such time gaps or spaces between. Their artworks are experiences and representations of encounters with groups of people, of familiar places of wonder and excitement, of statements about the way we live and of the freedom of exploration and experimentation.

Mahaveer Swami is one of the most renowned living traditional miniature artists from India. This body of work is comprised of portraits of characters that populate the India of his imagination, an imagination nurtured by memory and personal experience.

Mahaveer Swami and Ariane Mercier are two painters whose interest in each other's work has brought them together to collaborate on a project exploring the meeting of their eastern and western artistic traditions. The result of their collaboration has been seen in exhibitions and demonstrations in India and in Europe and has received significant critical acclaim. This exhibition entitled 'From Influence to Conflluence' will be the artists' first exhibition in Australia. 'From Influence to Confluence' will feature works on paper created over the past two years.
This exhibition is presented in association with Bonney-Tannock Art Enterprises Pty Ltd.

Ariane Mercier is a contemporary French artist who has been traveling to India for the past 15 years to study painting techniques under Mahaveer Swami. Her work possesses the metaphysical simplicity of a Giorgio Morandi painting, and the spiritual balance of Tantra art.

Mahaveer Swami and Ariane Mercier are two painters whose interest in each other's work has brought them together to collaborate on a project exploring the meeting of their eastern and western artistic traditions. The result of their collaboration has been seen in exhibitions and demonstrations in India and in Europe and has received significant critical acclaim. This exhibition entitled 'From Influence to Conflluence' will be the artists' first exhibition in Australia. 'From Influence to Confluence' will feature works on paper created over the past two years.
This exhibition is presented in association with Bonney-Tannock Art Enterprises Pty Ltd.

Luis Valsoto is a master in Mexico's contemporary art scene whose career as a painter spans almost 50 years. This will be his first exhibition in Australia. The exhibition will be formally opened by Her Excellency, Martha Ortiz de Rosas, the Mexican Ambassador to Australia.

'Simple Rituals' comprises 10 oils and 10 etchings of Valsoto's work, mostly created over the past two years, and provides an opportunity for Melburnians to sample some of Valsoto's artistic achievements, whether in painting or in graphic work.
This exhibition is presented in association with Bonney-Tannock Art Enterprises Pty Ltd.

follow the thread into the labyrinth: the friendship of three women, a child and the secret of the minotaur…
Developed by the ensemble over two years, Ollie and the Minotaur, tells the story of three women in their late twenties as they go away on their annual summer holiday together. What appears to be a typical few days away, begins with fun and reminiscing but ends in a brutal and dark examination of their friendship. The confession of one betrayal begins a revelation of secrets as the three women piece together the true story of their shared history.

Written by Duncan Graham
Directed by Sarah John
Produced by Veronica Bolzon
With Adriana Bonaccurso, Wendy Bos and Sarah Brokensha

Click on the link to read Alison Croggon's review of this season.

Based on the award-winning Peter Goldsworthy novel of the same name, 'Three Dog Night', questions the philosophical challenge of learning how to die and Australia’s conflicted multi-culture. It is an ironic, restless and at times confronting work about the fathomless human capacity for self-deception; about the means we invent to hide our true feelings.

This modern day tragedy explores the underlying impulses that shape human behaviour via an Aboriginal Dreaming. Indigenous spirituality and storytelling are intrinsic to this story's exploration of the clinical conviction that compassion is the means to liberation. Beginning in the Adelaide Hills, Three Dog Night journeys to the vast expanse of the Australian outback and takes us deep into the desert of the human soul.

Adapted by Petra Kalive
Directed by Andrew Gray

And When He Falls is a performance piece, compiled and presented by leading actor John Stanton with original musical commentary written and played by pianist Tony Gould. Directed by Jill Forster.

The bloody Plantagenet Kings of England are resurrected in this brilliant collaboration. Through dramatic selections from Marlowe and Shakespeare, the piece presents a dramatic short history of the long-lived dynasty.

The title ‘And When He Falls’, taken from a speech by Cardinal Wolsey in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, is a reference to the transitory nature of power, a constant theme in the fascinating period of the Plantagenet Kings, which still applies today.

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.

”Through figurative and abstracted form, 7 Contemporary Artists have chosen to explore the environment and its essential rhythms. These paintings and prints present a visual dialogue that express a response to the natural and the constructed world.

Whether the focus is multi-dimensional or uniform, rural or urban, their perceptions go beyond the actual physical landscape with each imaginative response capturing the vital essence of time and place.

These seven practicing artists, who graduated from RMIT University together, meet on a regular basis for artistic discourse and this is their second group show at fortyfivedownstairs.

Alison Hanly has been exploring the connection between elephants and humans since 2006. She is fascinated equally by the reality and the symbolism of the animals. She has studied the growing body of knowledge around the similarities between human and elephant development, psychology and emotional existence. Simultaneously she has been delving into the cultural and symbolic resonances surrounding elephants within a number of different cultures. While exploring these themes Alison Hanly has developed her own personal mythology and created a symbolic significance around them that is uniquely her own.

YES is based on a film by Sally Potter (Orlando, The Man Who Cried and The Tango Lesson). It is a tale of a cross-cultural love affair where East meets West and erotically charged desire meets politics and faith. This is it's Australian Premiere.

Tanya Gerstle has transported this filmic odyssey to the stage with a radical re-vision of its original context. Bodies collide in an erotic dance of lust and violence and in haunting visuals, memory and experience manifest a dreamily surreal timelessness, as the driving energy to understand ‘the other’ propels these lovers to go ‘to war’. Uttering YES in the face of violence, suffering and disappointment is the only choice. It is an act of redemption.

“…in search of a dynamic, energised text-based physical theatre.”
Tanya Gerstle, Creative Director OpticNerve Performance Group

An ambitious barrister, his second wife and her wannabe friend.
Enter a suave European painter who bedazzles them all.
But who is this man and what does he want?
A modern Melbourne fable of Ambition, Marriage, Art and the Law.

Directed by Gorkem Acaroglu
Written by Helen Heritage
Performed by Zoe Stark, Isabella Dunwill, Simon Russell and Philip Cameron Smith.

Five Kinds of Silence has explosive physical performances telling a haunting tale of the destructive cycle of silence and abuse, of ordinary people surviving extraordinary circumstances.

In this arresting tale, award-winning playwright Shelagh Stevenson (The Memory of Water) takes us on a disturbing journey into the hidden vortex of familial violence and sexual abuse. It walks a wavering line between savagery and intimacy with its scenarios of erotically charged violence.

“…in search of a dynamic, energised text-based physical theatre.”
Tanya Gerstle, Creative Director OpticNerve Performance Group