Pilgrims

This painting depicts the crowd leaving the Anzac Commemorative Site after the Dawn Service at Gallipoli on Anzac Day 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 is the seventh of those moments, showing the weary audience leaving, most continuing on to attend the Lone Pine ceremony at 11am, requiring a considerable walk up a steep track. This was a challenge for some, as the crowd had all been outdoors and awake for almost 24 hours. The painting presents the dedication required of the audience to attend the ceremony and through that, the deep meaning that the landing at Gallipoli in 1915 has for many contemporary Australians. Also captured, in the lower left, is a camouflaged Turkish soldier, part of the rigorous security arrangements for the occasion and a reminder of the contemporary threat of terrorism.