In the Covid year, commercial photographers were forced to becomes as creative in running their businesses as they are in their art. Gerard O’Connor and his stylist partner, Marc Wasiak, have been holding exhibitions. Queens of the Pub, for example, was a celebration of the weird, wild and wonderful people who drove Melbourne’s pub life in the ‘70s.

“We have shown so much recently, even showing more over COVID than normal. We really believe it’s a time for ART and imagination. The world needs a creative vision post Trump and everything in 2020,” O’Connor stated.

His current show, Beyond the Pleasure Garden, is being held in the famed Hepburn Palais, a restored 1920s theatres which has become a live music, cabaret and cocktails venue. (“We love showing in interesting spaces.”)

Beyond the Pleasure Garden, is a hand-selected series of works and will show for two and a half months. It’s theme is Where the Magic starts, a deliberate post-COVID statement. In part, it’s a celebration of O’Connor and Wasiak’s working together for the last twenty-five years. The images come from their last ten, and include photos from Decline and Fall, which exhibited at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China; Victoriana Pleasure Garden, which exhibited at the at the National Trust’s Tasma House in Australia and the prestigious Festival of Light in Buenos Aires; My Milonga the Dance of the Heart, which was shown in Australia and Argentina and Queens of the Pub, which was shown in Melbourne and Sydney.

“We thought that a regional galleries tour was a good circuit after COVID and we’ve had a huge turnout,” O’Connor stated. “Magic, art, well thought out and planned fantastical photography is the answer to our current state of affairs.”