Allez allez allez

While David Jolly's subject is large-scale sporting events such as the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix and the Tour de France, his paintings focus on their informal and intangible elements. His interest is not in the formal structures of sport (large stadiums and carefully tended playing fields) but in the environmental and theatrical qualities of temporary spaces such as the route of a cycling race of the parkland site of an inner-city Grand Prix. The annual Tour de France bicycle race offers both landscape and theatre as it travels for thousands of kilometres. The race route becomes an informal geography lesson illustrated with seductive images of the peloton snaking through picturesque towns and scenic mountains. The tour spectators participate in improvised theatre. They camp by the road, paint slogans on the bitumen, crowd perilously close to the speeding cyclists and form a lurid backdrop to television broadcasts. Where a stadium is a contained space dedicated to crowd control, the route of the Tour of France is a sprawling, seemingly anarchic carnival. The Tour de France is also a virtual spectacle, a piece of televisual theatre in which the riders are human billboards. Jolly's glass-painting technique seems to mimic a television screen but ultimately resists the televisual.