Bolt at Pasquarelli's opening

Crikey! I heard the alarming news this week that the crocodile hunter will be holding an art exhibition at Lynne Wilton Gallery on the gold-paved art strip in Armadale. No I’m not talking about Steve Irwin, but the other crocodile hunter and former political puppeteer of Pauline Hanson, John Pasquarelli.

Mr Pasquarelli is the kind of man people feel compelled to call ‘colourful’. Former crocodile shooter, skin trader, art dealer, right-wing agitator and Member of the New Guinea Parliament, National Party staffer, Liberal Party member, One Nation political fixer and speech writer. To that list we can add a profession I had not previously imagined he would have much time for: artist.

It’s a pity really, since a quick look around Lynne Wilton’s website reveals that the galley represents Julie Davidson, a painter I’ve admired as doing interesting things re-imagining the Still Life tradition.


It’s not difficult to see what might be in it for the gallery, since this is too good a story to pass up, especially since the show is reportedly being opened by right-wing blow-hard Andrew Bolt. (See, I'm doing it now: talking about them. I can't help myself.)

I can see them now, the crocodile shooter with the new career and the ubiquitous opinionista, standing around with glasses of expensive Chardonnay in their hands, while the idol rich of Armadale compete with each other for Pasquarelli’s awkward pictures of rusty sheds and Hills Hoists. They would be congratulating each other, without irony, for not belonging to the hated ‘cultural elite’.


They certainly would be conversation starters, no doubt about that.