A trip to the gallery: Pierre Bonnard and India Mahdavi at the NGV

I'm on a brief trip to sunny Melbourne. Interior designer Katie Riddell and I headed into the NGV to see the Bonnard exhibition. We were also keen to see the gallery design of India Mahdavi the French architect and interior designer.

Sarah Daly looking at an impressionist painting by Pierre Bonnard on wallpaper by India Mahdavi at the NGV in Melbourne.

As context: for me, spending time with a painting by Bonnard is an experience in and of itself. His work is beautiful, thoughtful, delicate. In real life, the paint shimmers in ways that we can't perceive online or in prints. This level of mastery is something I enjoy enormously. I am so impressed by the collection the NGV brought together.

Mahdavi's intention in the gallery design was for a conversation between herself and the work of Pierre Bonnard, the French post-impressionist. The intention was stated in a lovely letter on the gallery wall. Both Katie and I were keen to see how two renowned creatives would bring their ideas together.

Walking into the exhibition, I was loving the juxtaposition of ideas and times. The concept was interesting.

I'm new to Mahdavi's work and love it. It's maximalist, delightful fun! But next to Bonnard's delicately nuanced pieces, as I walked through the rooms, it felt like Mahdavi’s design was shouting way too loudly and wasn't giving Bonnard his own voice. Everything was BIG. By the middle of the exhibition, I had to mentally block out the overdone wallpapers so I could try to see Bonnard's work more as he intended. Now, I know modern galleries aren't where impressionist painters saw their work ending up... but that's a longer conversation!

The thing about impressionist works is they are already deeply considered - and how colours are placed is important for their own story. In Bonnard's work, there are spaces for the eyes to rest, complex patterns, specific tones to give other colours more energy. They are a feast in themselves. He is a master of compositional balance.

Then, outside of the frame of Bonnard's work, are the BOLD colours that Mahdavi has brought in. I get that she was loving the patterns in his work. I liked the idea. I like how she referenced the colours and forms of his work into the gallery design. But by the time we walked into the main space, with its pink walls, orange floors, and wallpaper everywhere else, I was visually bombarded and a headache began.... Those exquisite pieces by Bonnard that I was looking forward to were lost in the patterns. One wall had a particular tone of green that shifted the tones of Bonnard's pieces exactly in the wrong direction. Sigh.

An iconic interior designer and an exquisite painter, but the conversation just didn't work for me. Yes, I want to see what they both have to say, but in different spaces.

Photos of the space (as above) do look fabulous. This whole exhibition is Instagram-friendly, for sure. This gets punters in the door. And an exhibition has to pay the bills. When the 'Instagram' experience overtakes the intention of the art, it makes me walk away wondering.

Even though I’m not a fan of the outcome, I would still recommend going - it is certainly an experience. And not everything creative has to work for my personal aesthetic for me to find it engaging.

The exhibition commenced in June 2023. Click here for more information.

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