PLAYING THE GAME
ANNE ZAHALKA
This collection of portraits re-addresses the visual history of sport in Australia and reflects on those (non-professionals) who practice and embrace it.
Sport looms large in Australia’s psyche. It is played, observed, idealised. Our collective subconscious is saturated with sports imagery; from illustrations of heroic sportsmen on army recruitment posters to the instantly recongisable faces of today’s sports celebrities on milk cartons and television advertisements. Anne Zahalka’s latest body of work, draws on, and re-invents, this rich visual history. Playing the game! was initially inspired by the “pub paintings” of the 1930s – 1960s, which depicted archetypal portraits of sportsmen. Usually accompanied by the tag-line “After the Game”, these colourful paintings were used in suburban and regional NSW pubs to advertise beer.
