Historical information

Louise Hearman used the Norla Dome and painted a mural painted which had taken her around a year to complete. The exhibition called Elephant Room was shown from June 1988. The work was vandalised in 1989 and subsequently demolished.

Significance

Louise Hearman is a Melbourne born artist and Archibald Prize winner.
Hearman first came to public notice in 1987/88 when she spent a year painting the mural in the Norla Dome. The premises of the Mission also served as her studio at that time.

Physical description

Black and white copy of a newspaper article, printed on A3 paper.

Inscriptions & markings

It’s Louise’s masterpiece, come heaven, hell or high water
Report: SARAH TURNER
PICTURE: LEIGH HENNINGHAM
When her Little Bourke St studio was pulled down to make way for a carpark, artist Louise Hearman, above, contacted The Seamen’s Mission in Flinders St to see whether she could use their cottage. They agree. But neither knew what it was going to lead to. When Hearman saw ‘the Elephant Room’ at the mission, a big domed room, she felt she “just had to do something with it”. She applied for and was granted a $3250 grant from the Australia Council, with which she was able to buy the necessary scaffold and paint, and then set about transforming the room. Now, a year later, her masterpiece is complete. Hearman emphasised the the mural doesn’t represent “heaven and hell”. Rather, she said, “people should make their own interpretations”. She said it was “not particularly heaven and hell, it’s not particularly anything”. And there is “no narrative” to the mural. It “just developed with the building”, out of whatever images and feeling Hearman had at the time. Sadly though, Hearman said the mural was likely to fall off the walls and domed ceiling unless the room was waterproofed - water damage is a serious problem at the mission.