Purgatorio, A Drinkingbout (Series of Drinkers - Smokey the Bar, No. 6)

Sandra Meigs first exhibited her “Drinkingbout” watercolours in 1981 at the Ydessa Hendeles Gallery, then on Queen Street West and at the time, the first serious commercial gallery to move into the neighbourhood. The drawings depict the length of a crowded bar in some kind of unhinged world where inner thoughts torn from the pages of a diary float through the smoky air. Stick figures on bar stools mingle and drink copiously, as intoxication, communal mania and madness are rendered in cinematic sequence. Like many artists of the period, Meigs presented her chosen themes in a variety of other media. She made several films in the early 1980s, including the 16mm production, Purgatorio, A Drinkingbout, created the same year as the series of works on paper presented here.