Flag

This painting depicts the Australian flag at half-mast at the Dawn Service at Gallipoli in 2015. Artist David Jolly was commissioned by the Memorial to attend the centenary Anzac Day Dawn Service at Gallipoli and create a series of paintings in response. Jolly works by photographing and recording places and events and then selecting moments and details that convey the larger story. In this case, he explored Gallipoli for several days, taking photographs, short film and sound recordings and drawing key sites on the Peninsula. The seven paintings present moments from between the afternoon of 24 April and the conclusion of the Dawn Service, when the crowds left the commemorative site.

This painting is the fifth of those moments, showing the flag at half-mast during the Dawn Service. The first light of dawn, mingling with the artifical light hitting the flagpole from below, with the Aegean Sea and the island of Imbros in the background.