Two By Two
Not everyone got on to Noah’s Ark – plenty got left behind. Set in a Melbourne of the near future, and in the wake of mass flooding, TWO BY TWO follows a couple and a sick woman who have been…
Leggings Are Not Pants
Raw, raucous, and beautiful, Leggings Are Not Pants shows that there are no boundaries to gender identity, but there are to lycra. A pole show with a twist on the sexy, this is for anyone who has not come out…
The Burlesque Hour: The Glory Box
Finucane & Smith, purveyors of the seductive, subversive, and electrifying are back...and this time they’re opening Pandora’s Box! Get ready for the unleashing of the wild ones led by a jaw-dropping Moira/Medusa in the anarchic, erotic and unforgettable THE GLORY…
Kristin Diemer
As a photographer and sociologist, Kristin Diemer loves to tell a good story. Her latest exhibition 'A Dingo Fence and Mallee Roots' tells the story of a Victorian family farming on the Fringe. Kristin's poignant imagery illustrates the often solitary life of…
In Vogue: Songs By Madonna
Michael Griffiths IS Madonna. No accent, costume or wig. Just 'Madge' accompanying herself at the piano leading you on a journey through her tough life and tender songs. Strike a pose, get into the groove and express yourself as Madonna…
Tom Sharah in Que Sera, Sharah
Can a cabaret show have too much attitude? Too much pizzaz? Or a young star have too much showbiz in his veins? Not when the star is Tom Sharah, winner of the 2009 Sydney Cabaret Showcase. Too much is just…
Janice Gobey
‘An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing...’ - Louise Bourgeois With undergraduate studies in Psychology and Sociology Janice Gobey harbours a fascination for the human condition and in particular the dynamics between men and women…
Alexandra Sassé
With a deep understanding of the language of painting and drawing Alexandra Sassé interprets the intangibles of human presence through colour and line. Working repeatedly with a small select circle of models, the intensity of the studio spills into these…
Morganna Magee
A photographic series by Morganna Magee. Motherhood is our biological destiny, but for the first time consumerism and marketing has meant the spotlight is well and truly on modern mothers. Motherhood is universal but each woman brings her own history…
Jean Lyons
Reminiscent of Zen Buddhist brush and ink landscapes, Jean Lyon’s new series of oils on canvas harmonise representations of earth, fire, water, air and space to create enchanting, dreamlike scenes. Lyon’s begins each work with an amorphous grey wash. Organic…
Pamela See
'My inspiration for the White wash series comes from the Chinese government’s attempt to control the use of public space. Throughout Beijing unauthorised postings, largely of a commercial nature, are painted over with white and grey brush marks. In Brisbane,…
Samuel Condon
Dream city is about memory, dreams, and imagination. It is a world of shifting buildings, places and people. Structures have taken on impossible forms, stretching and molding to the imagination.The characters that inhabit dream city are all very poetic in…
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road
Set in a rural Victorian town, True Love Travels on a Gravel Road is play about broken dreams and choices. Jake has been patronised as the town “tard” all of his life but when he falls in love with the…
Pompeii, LA
A car-wreck on Hollywood Freeway, a former child star trapped inside. On a sound-stage somewhere the lights are dimming, the credits are rolling, and a volcano is bubbling – ready to explode. POMPEII, L.A. is a surreal, bitter paean to…
Bach Suites
Three centuries of interpretation. Three centuries of interpretation re-imagined. Bringing a designer, a dancer and a choreographer together with ANAM'S cellists, these performances explore the traces of movement and light resting in these iconic dance suites. Bach Suites for Solo…
Victorian Indigenous Art Awards 2012
An exhibition of the finalists of the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards 2012. The annual Victorian Indigenous Art Awards acknowledge the contribution and achievement of Indigenous artists in Victoria. The program aims to; present a current representation of Indigenous art practice…
exhibition proposals for the 2012 program
In the current round applications are invited from artists and curators for the large gallery space at fortyfivedownstairs for the following dates: 3 April – 21 April 2012 (3 week exhibition offered at a reduced rate equivalent to 2 weeks)…
Images of Home
Images of Home is a Community Cultural Development research project involving young people from Officer Primary School.The project is designed to engage young people living in growth corridors in Cardinia Shire to explore social connection and the meaning of ‘home’…
Dayne Trower
Despite their consideration, precision and intricacy, there’s an elusiveness to the works of Dayne Trower. Meticulously crafted from slender layers of plywood, they drift between disciplines, formal and conceptual directives; they occupy and eschew the tropes of the architectural floor…
Mike Hewson
On 22 February the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand took lives, landmarks, roads, homes and buildings. One of the buildings greatly affected was an office block that served as a studio for several New Zealand artists. As…
Flinders Quartet
Flinders Quartet is a Melbourne institution on the chamber music scene and their free concert series introduces their remarkable music to city workers on their lunch break. Come to fortyfivedownstairs September 30 at 1pm to hear Haydn's String Quartet Op…
Celia Bridle & Aphra Perkins
'Painting to express movement, change and transformation' - Magnifying her black and white pen and pencil drawings, Celia Bridle was surprised to discover another world of images infinitely divisible and continual; flowing organic shapes, patterns, abstract and pictorial elements, plant-like…
Wendy Kelly
Wendy Kelly's approach to abstraction is influenced by Minimalism, a reductivist aesthetic and an "almost monochrome" sensibility. Materiality and process play an important role in her work. Incorporating subtle texture into the two-dimensional surface of her work, Kelly’s personal visual…
Gavin Brown & William Eicholtz
Gavin Brown and William Eicholtz are both unique artists who have resolutely followed their own aesthetics, quite outside the tides of fashionable movements. Their long careers have consistently defied categorisation, challenged accepted tastes and standards, and delighted dedicated collectors. Firm friends…
A Stranger In Town
Inspired by the original musical diary of Otto Lampel. Otto and his broken heart flee war-ravaged Prague crossing the Atlantic Ocean to a new life in Canada. He finds a fish, a lion, and a girl… but will the trembling…
Georgia Thorpe
In a celebration of light, Georgia Thorpe has created a series of unique woodcut prints – Large and bold on lightweight Japanese mulberry paper. Using materials that reflect an awareness of a sustainable art practice, Georgia builds the imagery with…
Anita Mertzlin
Skin - a covering, a containment that defines the shape of the subject. A membrane that acts as a barrier between exterior and within. A defence, but also a vulnerability. It can be cut, pierced, peeled and bruised, usually having…
Rebekah Stuart
Rebekah Stuart’s new work examines how fragments of the landscape and portraiture can be reconstructed to create pathways to new, imagined lands. She explores an alternative aesthetic to the Romantic and traditional landscape in which distortions of scale disorientate the…
Shannon McGrathis.gd
Shannon McGrath has been honing her skills over the last decade in the commercial world of architectural photography. In this series of large format photographic archival digital prints, McGrath references two of Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry’s major buildings in Spain…
Ding Liren
Contemporary painting and watercolour on paper from China. Ding Liren is now a professor in Art and Design at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and a part time professor at Guangdong Industrial University. His works are represented…
Antonietta Covino-Beehre, Deanna Hitti, and Carolyn Lewens
Recent contemporary printmaking. Age-long practices, established methods and conventional techniques are overturned and re-interpreted with a fresh approach that brings new vigour to the medium. Printing techniques such as woodcuts, intaglio, collagraphs and cyanotypes are brought into a new light…
The Dollhouse
Nora and Torvald are cashed up and climbing: bespoke warehouse conversion, perfect children, and a shiny new job at a major bank for Torvald. Everything that Nora could want is due for Christmas. A classic play masterfully transposed to contemporary…
Arts Spring Clean
We’ve assembled a delightful dozen creative folk and they want to meet you! An eclectic mix of Melbourne creatives have been invited to partake in a collaborative cacophony at fortyfivedownstairs. Artists and makers of all persuasions will engage curious members…