Today the toddler and I took the tram to the city, to the foyer of Vic Uni to see some sketches by Paul Borg. Now when I say some I mean hundreds of these small sketches are packed like sardines, cheek by jowl into shallow glass cabinets in the dimly lit foyer off Flinders St in Melbourne. We were left alone by the dozens of students who paced past us on their busy way as we pressed our noses against the glass to look at these finely sketched and sensitively wrought pages of urban life, all embracing the same moment, that of repose as they pass the time on public transport.
None of the drawings in On the Line are for sale and it is easy to see that they all belong together. While they stand alone as portraits they seem to be almost bonded together by the journey. The individuals in the picture are dependent upon the others to give them their significance. They are a crowd of faces that I found myself scanning as we do in crowds sometimes when everyone looks familiar, but no-one is actually known. They are beautiful and touching individually and as a whole…..on until the 25th September.