Melbourne Match

First dates can be nerve-racking (especially a blind date that’s being filmed and written about all over Australia).

Yet not unlike a good exhibition, just as first impressions can be complex they can also be breathtaking to watch. Nothing is more beautiful than seeing the instant chemistry of a well-matched couple laying eyes on each other for the first time.

For this reason, there seemed no better location for the first round of couples to start their creative date than the exhibition Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire (the first comprehensive retrospective work of Salvador Dali ever to be staged in Australia) held exclusively at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

As we stood in the stone hallway, the girls Shelly Horton, Glynis-Trail-Nash, Zoe Naylor, Bianca Dye and Rachel Luchetti were humbled by the grandeur of the environment and their nerves…

However as we approached the men (looking gorgeous but scared) Jason McDonald, Matt Hopper, Alex Cleary, Tobie Cameron and Simon Moody and I introduced them, first date jitters were over and the good times began.

It was good. It was so good, that not unlike the artist himself, it seemed a little surreal and hard to comprehend how something so complex looked so effortless. Here were 10 strangers who literally fell into couples from the minute I matched them and stayed that way.

The couples sat, having high tea and getting to know each other whilst listening to the Curator Sophie Matthiesson talk them through all things Dalí.

I am a matchmaker, not a stalker so we let them discover Dalí and each other alone with their possible darling.  

From what I was told some couples such as Rachel and Alex wandered through the 200 piece exhibition looking at everything intently – such was there love of aesthetics.

Bubbly couple Shelley and Tobie took the exhibition’s name Liquid Desire as fuel to look through quickly then head up to the café to chat about their obvious chemistry over a glass of wine.

Matt Hopper who had already been, let Zoe take it all in with his own “snap-shot tour” and Simon and Bianca – the comedy duo ‑ laughed and were possibly more surreal and abstract to watch than the artists’ work itself.

As a matchmaker, you know you’ve done a good job when all the couples wandered out of the exhibition with their match and didn’t give you the “what the hell did you choose him/her for?” look.

Instead they got into the cars headed back to the gorgeous Crown Towers and out for their own private Melbourne dinners.

It looked like Melbourne Match lived up to its name.

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