Fenella Kernebone: A quick heads-up: in this series we talk about drug use,
Fenella Kernebone: mental health issues and there's a bit of swearing.
Alec George: Welcome to the Brett Whiteley Studio. Have you been here before at all?
Fenella Kernebone: I'm Fenella Kernebone , and this is 'Art, life and the other thing'. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Fenella Kernebone: on which this podcast was made, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
Fenella Kernebone: Throughout this series, I sit down with some of Australia's
Fenella Kernebone: most exciting contemporary artists and curators to talk about the
Fenella Kernebone: artist Brett Whiteley, his work and the impact he has
Fenella Kernebone: had on their careers. In each episode, we focus on
Fenella Kernebone: one of Brett's artworks, looking at the story behind the work,
Fenella Kernebone: the issues surrounding it and the impact it had on
Fenella Kernebone: the Australian art landscape. Today we're looking at one of
Fenella Kernebone: his lesser-known artworks, though it's a piece that says a
Fenella Kernebone: lot about the artist himself and his inner struggles.
Fenella Kernebone: The Brett Whiteley studio in Surry Hills [Sydney] is a converted
Fenella Kernebone: old t-shirt factory with this mezzanine space upstairs, and this
Fenella Kernebone: is where his studio is. When you enter, you see
Fenella Kernebone: a stereo, a side table with trinkets, a few records.
Fenella Kernebone: And then there's this clock hanging in the centre of
Fenella Kernebone: the wall. A lot of the time people don't even
Fenella Kernebone: notice it. It looks similar to a clock that you'd
Fenella Kernebone: find hanging on anyone's living room wall. But if you
Fenella Kernebone: stop and take a closer look, you'll see that the
Fenella Kernebone: clock has two faces and a gallery label just underneath.
Fenella Kernebone: It's then that you realise, this is no ordinary clock.
Anne Ryan: This work is called 'The heroin clock' . It's from 1981.
Fenella Kernebone: This is Anne Ryan, curator of Australian art at the
Fenella Kernebone: Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Anne Ryan: It's two clock faces, one of which is working, and
Anne Ryan: it's showing the time as it is today. And the
Anne Ryan: one on the right is similar, but the hands are still,
Anne Ryan: and the numbers have all become compressed at the top
Anne Ryan: of the circle of the clock. So instead of the
Anne Ryan: numbers one through to twelve, being as we would expect
Anne Ryan: to find them on a clock face, they've all kind
Anne Ryan: of compressed together. And so it's a, it's a sculpture,
Anne Ryan: and it's a work about the compression of time that
Anne Ryan: one experiences when one is under the influence of heroin.
Fenella Kernebone: To see the piece online, go to agnsw.art/bwspodcast. Brett Whiteley
Fenella Kernebone: used and was addicted to heroin for years. It's a
Fenella Kernebone: subject he confronts openly in many of his works, most
Fenella Kernebone: famously in his Archibald Prize-winning self-portrait , 'Art, life and
Fenella Kernebone: the other thing', which featured a syringe attached onto the canvas.
Fenella Kernebone: Here's Anne again, about the role addiction played in Brett's life.
Anne Ryan: I think some of us have addictive personalities, and whether
Anne Ryan: that's about food or illicit drugs or sex or anything,
Anne Ryan: I think some people have a propensity towards that. A
Anne Ryan: lot of creative people do as well. Brett Whiteley came
Anne Ryan: of age at a time when illicit drugs were becoming
Anne Ryan: more prevalent in the West. At a time before society's
Anne Ryan: reaction to that - whether that be legal or social or cultural -
Anne Ryan: had evolved the way it is today. And a lot
Anne Ryan: of creative people saw a way of changing their perception
Anne Ryan: of the world, whether that be through alcohol or any
Anne Ryan: other method, as a way of gaining insight into something
Anne Ryan: that might not be otherwise accessible. So people focused a
Anne Ryan: great deal on that because it is a sort of
Anne Ryan: slightly scandalous, interesting thing about Brett Whiteley and his life.
Anne Ryan: But I think he was from a long line of
Anne Ryan: creative people who were seeking a truth, and they were
Anne Ryan: working out how to find that how to get there.
Anne Ryan: And that was one of the ways that he did,
Anne Ryan: of course, ultimately led to his demise.
Fenella Kernebone: Was he addicted to art?
Anne Ryan: I think artists who are driven to create are probably
Anne Ryan: addicted to art. There is a compulsion with a true artist,
Anne Ryan: whether they be a songwriter or a dancer to do
Anne Ryan: that thing because they need to do it. It's something
Anne Ryan: that gives them energy. It's something that gives them solace.
Anne Ryan: It's their way of trying to push. They're questioning about
Anne Ryan: being in the world, and I think I've worked with
Anne Ryan: many artists of different stages of their life and their career,
Anne Ryan: and the ones who are still creating the really interesting
Anne Ryan: work in their 70s and 80s and 90s are the
Anne Ryan: ones who are still scratching away at that itch and
Anne Ryan: doing it every day and getting in the studio and
Anne Ryan: making the work. When you stop the struggle, that's when
Anne Ryan: you stop being interesting, and I think for an artist
Anne Ryan: like Brett Whiteley, it was as essential as breathing. And
Anne Ryan: I think for any true artist they have to do
Anne Ryan: what they do, because for them it's the reason that
Anne Ryan: they get up in the morning, and it's the thing
Anne Ryan: that presses them to create great work.
Fenella Kernebone: Looking back, it's easy to speculate that perhaps Brett was
Fenella Kernebone: using heroin to self medicate, to slow down his frantic
Fenella Kernebone: or even melancholy thoughts. But his former wife, Wendy Whiteley,
Fenella Kernebone: says it's more complicated than that. Here she is in
Fenella Kernebone: a talk recorded live at the Art Gallery of New
Fenella Kernebone: South Wales.
Wendy Whiteley: He could go into a space where he just switched off.
Wendy Whiteley: People would come to me and say, 'what did I do wrong?'
Wendy Whiteley: You know, he was so friendly a minute ago and
Wendy Whiteley: then suddenly, bang! Life was always intense for him, he had
Wendy Whiteley: set himself very high goals. He loathed the feeling of
Wendy Whiteley: failure in himself in particular, he set himself up against
Wendy Whiteley: some pretty amazing other artists in all forms, but mostly
Wendy Whiteley: painting and that's what he wanted to achieve. And when
Wendy Whiteley: he didn't, he got very depressed, very dark. And then
Wendy Whiteley: of course, you know – I'm not telling you anything you don't already know – the
Wendy Whiteley: drug addiction wasn't helping. It seemed to for a while, and the
Wendy Whiteley: kind of sense of being able to be still for
Wendy Whiteley: a while and feel relaxed, really one was comatose. But it
Wendy Whiteley: felt like being relaxed at the time until you become
Wendy Whiteley: addicted to it. And then it becomes its own problem.
Wendy Whiteley: You know, all drugs, all things that you love can
Wendy Whiteley: have that in a way, the attachment to anything: to
Wendy Whiteley: a car, a house, a painting can have that dark side effect,
Wendy Whiteley: but with heroin it was the struggle, a complete moral dilemma.
Fenella Kernebone: When we talk about Brett's drug addiction, it is important
Fenella Kernebone: to remember that this was in the 1980s. The scene
Fenella Kernebone: and culture around drug taking was very different to what
Fenella Kernebone: it is today.
Wendy Whiteley: In Australia it didn't exist in the middle classes. It was a pretty
Wendy Whiteley: boozy culture, it still is Australia, you know, the rite of
Wendy Whiteley: passage was about booze, not about particularly drugs. In those days,
Wendy Whiteley: if you were a bit you know, veering off to the left, you
Wendy Whiteley: might smoke a bit of marijuana, but the use of opium,
Wendy Whiteley: heroin, all these new drugs have come since then, speed, everything, didn't
Wendy Whiteley: exist then.
Fenella Kernebone: It was also a massive part of the alternative rock scene,
Fenella Kernebone: and there were a lot of actors, musicians and, yes,
Fenella Kernebone: artists who were caught up in it. To help us
Fenella Kernebone: understand this period of time, I invited Australian rock icon
Fenella Kernebone: Steve Kilbey to the Brett Whiteley Studio. He's part of
Fenella Kernebone: the iconic band The Church, but today you're just as
Fenella Kernebone: likely to find him painting. Brett and Steve share more than
Fenella Kernebone: painting in common. Both had early success in their careers
Fenella Kernebone: as artists. Both were addicted to heroin, and both had
Fenella Kernebone: studios in Surry Hills where they worked and partied.
Steve Kilbey: We were both heroin addicts at the same time, and
Steve Kilbey: I really envied him because I thought how great it
Steve Kilbey: would be to be able to sell a painting and
Steve Kilbey: get the money and go and buy the smack. Whereas me,
Steve Kilbey: I got to wait for these periods 'til my royalties come in.
Steve Kilbey: And so I was envious of that.
Fenella Kernebone: Though he admits to not being a huge fan of
Fenella Kernebone: Brett's work, I wanted to know what he thought about 'The heroin clock'
Fenella Kernebone: and about the impact the drug has had on his
Fenella Kernebone: own creative life.
Steve Kilbey: I'm not exactly sure what he's getting at there, but
Steve Kilbey: everything's topsy turvy and fucked up, I guess, and time
Steve Kilbey: has no meaning. It's more like a speedo [speedometer] than a clock isn't it? Yeah.
Steve Kilbey: I mean, there are two things that for me that
Steve Kilbey: make life stop and music isn't one of them, but painting is.
Steve Kilbey: And when I'm painting, um, even though I'm not a
Steve Kilbey: very great painter or a good painter or anything, when
Steve Kilbey: I'm painting, um, I go into a non verbal world
Steve Kilbey: where my mind stops talking and chattering. I'm a pastellist,
Steve Kilbey: so I've got a big box of pastels and I
Steve Kilbey: look at the painting. I look at my box of
Steve Kilbey: pastels and something says, 'grab that one' but I sort
Steve Kilbey: of stop. After a while, I stop. It's, there's no words.
Steve Kilbey: It's just all going. Something in me is going. This
Steve Kilbey: needs to be bigger here, and this needs to be darker,
Steve Kilbey: and you need to get some black there, and I'm
Steve Kilbey: just sort of there in the colours and sort of
Steve Kilbey: in it. And in fact, when my children were coming
Steve Kilbey: and go, 'Hey Dad!' I go, 'Oh!' It's sort of like
Steve Kilbey: being woken, woken out of a dream. And the other
Steve Kilbey: state that did that for me was drugs. Heroin, and
Steve Kilbey: painting never coincided for me, because by the time I
Steve Kilbey: started painting, I'd stopped taking heroin. But, um, with music,
Steve Kilbey: I wanted to capture this sort of slow down sort
Steve Kilbey: of bassy, sort of detached feeling and heroin, I went through
Steve Kilbey: a honeymoon period with it for about a year where it greatly enabled,
Steve Kilbey: I thought, and it gave me a sort of feeling
Steve Kilbey: to capture. But after a while, after about a year,
Steve Kilbey: I made music despite heroin. Not because of it.
Fenella Kernebone: Both Brett and Steve had talent, and it's a talent
Fenella Kernebone: that they shared with the world, a part of themselves they gave
Fenella Kernebone: away in each song or painting. I wonder what that
Fenella Kernebone: would have felt like.
Steve Kilbey: You know, one night in 1986, me and my then girlfriend knocked out a song
Steve Kilbey: in three minutes and you know, if that, and you
Steve Kilbey: know by various processes that got on an album, a
Steve Kilbey: record company got behind it. And now, 32 years later,
Steve Kilbey: everybody walks around talking about this song and, you know,
Steve Kilbey: I do it here and I do it there and
Steve Kilbey: all of that, but I'm sort of I'm sort of
Steve Kilbey: detached from it. And I'm like, I don't know. I
Steve Kilbey: don't know what to do with it. I wish I
Steve Kilbey: could take it all in and cheer myself up. You know,
Steve Kilbey: when I wake up on a cold morning and I've
Steve Kilbey: got to go to the dentist and I'm lonely and
Steve Kilbey: scared and I wish I could go, 'Hey, I wrote
Steve Kilbey: this iconic song', and go 'Right, I'm ready to take on the world'.
Steve Kilbey: And obviously it didn't like, didn't do it for Brett, either.
Steve Kilbey: There's a real parallel, despite all his success and being
Steve Kilbey: an icon and all the money he had and having
Steve Kilbey: this house and all the other stuff, he wasn't feeling
Steve Kilbey: the love, either. I used to think when I was
Steve Kilbey: a kid, I thought, 'boy, if I was famous and
Steve Kilbey: playing guitar and girls are screaming, I'd be the happiest
Steve Kilbey: guy in the world' and I found out that was
Steve Kilbey: not the case. It didn't sort of, it didn't cure
Steve Kilbey: all of my problems at all, and nor did heroin
Steve Kilbey: and nor did being famous. And obviously it didn't work for Brett, either.
Steve Kilbey: So I guess, I guess there is a parallel between
Steve Kilbey: his painting and his paintings and my songs. Um, it
Steve Kilbey: doesn't sort of it's hard to, it's hard to squeeze the
Steve Kilbey: juice out of them and drink it and go, 'Wow!'.
Steve Kilbey: You just always, you always sort of detached from the
Steve Kilbey: stuff you create yourself, 'cause you know how you've done it,
Steve Kilbey: so it doesn't it doesn't really impress you.
Fenella Kernebone: The existential search for meaning, a seeking of answers, enlightenment,
Fenella Kernebone: whatever it is that Brett might have been trying to
Fenella Kernebone: do through his art, none of that is new, but the
Fenella Kernebone: relief that he sought - in painting, alcohol, sex and drugs - today,
Fenella Kernebone: that might be viewed in a different light. We can
Fenella Kernebone: understand how this might work through the art of David
Fenella Kernebone: Griggs, who we also spoke with in the previous episode. His Archibald
Fenella Kernebone: entry in 2009 called 'Zoloft nation', focused on the prescription
Fenella Kernebone: drugs he relies on to help him with depression. While
Fenella Kernebone: his work is dark, it's also full of colour, humour
Fenella Kernebone: and fun. Here he is talking about the influence Brett's
Fenella Kernebone: life and legacy has had on his own career.
David Griggs: You know, even as a younger artist trying to sort
David Griggs: of grasp what that means... his lifestyle became more interesting than
David Griggs: the work at the end, which is sad. I mean,
David Griggs: this sounds really weird, but in a way, it was
David Griggs: because of the way he passed it was like, it made
David Griggs: you sort of re-question like what you were doing. You know, so like, 'Oh, geez, like,
David Griggs: I gotta be careful' or I shouldn't ... you don't want
David Griggs: to go out like Whiteley. That's sort of interesting that
David Griggs: I think is subconsciously there for artists, particularly painters, for sure.
David Griggs: Because there is that feeling where you get so distraught
David Griggs: in what you're doing and the complexity of the struggle
David Griggs: is completely difficult, you know.
Fenella Kernebone: Yeah. It's an addiction. It's a compulsion to continue to create, but also
Fenella Kernebone: to create you've been doing it under the influence in some
Fenella Kernebone: ways to help you along or to propel you to
Fenella Kernebone: a certain point, you know, suddenly to not have it anymore. For some artists,
Fenella Kernebone: they talk about, well, 'I'm going to lose the ability'
Fenella Kernebone: or not, I don't know. That's what, I mean, Whiteley used to
Fenella Kernebone: talk about that, I think.
David Griggs: I've been trying to lay off cigarettes for years and years,
David Griggs: but it's that thing where, you know, the studio. I mean,
David Griggs: at the moment, you can't smoke in the studio. And
David Griggs: it took me months to be able to actually paint
David Griggs: without even having a cigarette. It was hard. It was
David Griggs: really hard. Just not having that mental crutch for creativity, whatever
David Griggs: it is.
Fenella Kernebone: Can we have a look at 'The heroin clock' around the corner?
Fenella Kernebone: It's like real time versus mashed up time. Heroin time, addiction time, maybe it's
Fenella Kernebone: art time when you're in the zone or something like that.
David Griggs: Yeah, I get it. I get it. That's why the
David Griggs: numbers are crunched up at the right. Okay. I, yeah,
David Griggs: that makes sense. And the '3' is like where the '7'
David Griggs: would be. No. What the hell? No. The '7' is where the ... Anyway, yeah,
David Griggs: it is completely mashed up.
Fenella Kernebone: Yeah, the '3' is where the '7' should be. It's all gone to dust.
David Griggs: But it's interesting that he even though he mashed it up,
David Griggs: he still used the clock as a literal sort of
David Griggs: visual device. instead of doing it as a painting, so
David Griggs: that's sort of interesting. He felt he could get that
David Griggs: message across easier with that.
Fenella Kernebone: In the previous episode, we talked to David about how
Fenella Kernebone: hard he worked to climb his way out of a
Fenella Kernebone: very debilitating bout of depression, eventually getting his life back
Fenella Kernebone: on track. It's a place that Brett was sadly not
Fenella Kernebone: able to reach, which perhaps explains the key difference between
Fenella Kernebone: David's Archibald entry with 'Zoloft nation' and Brett's with 'Art,
Fenella Kernebone: life and the other thing'. While both are about the
Fenella Kernebone: mental state of the artists, they tell different stories.
David Griggs: You know and then you come through this window and then weirdly,
David Griggs: over a very slow time and a lot of hard
David Griggs: work, you almost get your life back, you know? You have to pretty
David Griggs: much go through hell, which a lot of people that
David Griggs: have this sort of ailment will understand. And I think
David Griggs: with that painting, I was like, 'Oh, well, let's just spell
David Griggs: it out in the title, you know: "Zoloft nation".' And it's sort
David Griggs: of just my way of saying, 'Oh, you can look
David Griggs: at this painting and you can think about mental health
David Griggs: and you can think about this artist experience of this
David Griggs: and that.' But what was really humbling from that experience
David Griggs: was the painting became therapy, like you might even be
David Griggs: breaking down and having the most horrible day. But if
David Griggs: you can just, like, push through and just even do
David Griggs: 20 minutes of painting, it can sort of trigger something
David Griggs: innately in you that can you know... And when you make
David Griggs: those little breakthroughs in the hardest moments, you will always
David Griggs: get better.
Fenella Kernebone: So does the process of creating art function as a
Fenella Kernebone: form of therapy, or does the drive to create art that
Fenella Kernebone: inspires and changes the world send people crazy or is
Fenella Kernebone: it a bit of both?
David Griggs: I mean, you know I think people talk about Brett
David Griggs: as [if] it's like a dance, you know, it's this thing, this
David Griggs: very poetic notion of the painter dancing with the brush.
David Griggs: But for me, it's a bit more aggressive than that.
David Griggs: I don't know if I'd say I'm poetic at all,
David Griggs: but it's definitely a very physical, physically and mentally draining
David Griggs: thing to do that. I think unless you really delved
David Griggs: into painting as a thing, you can't sort of grasp it,
David Griggs: you know? Um, so you know, if I, if I
David Griggs: see friends that are also painters and you can just
David Griggs: sort of see it in them, they might feel run
David Griggs: down or look run down. But then other days they're uplifted,
David Griggs: and it's got nothing to do with home life. It's
David Griggs: like I know what's going on in the studio just
David Griggs: from looking at you, you know? And that is that torment
David Griggs: that is that pleasure but it is also that daily traumatic
David Griggs: experience of, yeah, the struggle, but —
Fenella Kernebone: Just doing the work.
David Griggs: — just doing the work. But you know, and I think people don't get this, so
David Griggs: for any people, anyone that's say dating an artist, just
David Griggs: remember that their brain is on this 24 hours a day.
David Griggs: I mean, yeah, you can cut off and maybe do
David Griggs: whatever and distract from that train of thought, but you
David Griggs: sort of can't, you know? So just, yeay, be a little —
Fenella Kernebone: Be kind
David Griggs: — be kind.
Fenella Kernebone: Is it an addiction?
David Griggs: Oh yeah, completely. I mean, the longest I've had off painting,
David Griggs: probably since I was 18, would have been about three months.
David Griggs: And there's a moment within that time – usually I won't take
David Griggs: more than three, four weeks ever - there's something completely missing in
David Griggs: your being, you know? And then you remember, 'Oh, that's right,
David Griggs: I haven't been painting, of course.' You know, and then, there
David Griggs: is this nice thing when you have a gap of time,
David Griggs: that's not too long, but not too short where you
David Griggs: start to miss it. And that's the moment when it
David Griggs: feels really, really nice to paint again because you've come
David Griggs: to that threshold, so to speak, of not painting, and
David Griggs: you just need it. You just got to do it. But,
David Griggs: you know, being in the zone stuff, sometimes it'll just happen.
David Griggs: You might, you know, I mean, there's times I'll sit
David Griggs: on my sofa and just be like, 'What's going on?
David Griggs: I don't know what to do.' But you've got this show
David Griggs: coming up, and then you sort of push yourself to
David Griggs: do something. And three hours later you forgot all about
David Griggs: that feeling, you know? Or there's other days you feel really good
David Griggs: and 'Yeah, I'm going to do this painting', and then
David Griggs: you're like, 'Oh.' So you just don't know when it's going
David Griggs: to happen. Yeah, it is. It's really, you can't gauge every day what's
David Griggs: going to unfold. Yeah.
Fenella Kernebone: I don't know about Brett, but it sounds like he
Fenella Kernebone: struggled through to the very end. I'm just wondering if
Fenella Kernebone: there's a comment to be said that you might have
Fenella Kernebone: already talked about it before about what happens when you
Fenella Kernebone: don't go and get the help that you need.
David Griggs: Well, you're going to, you're gonna crash. I mean, there's
David Griggs: just no doubt about it, you know? And I think
David Griggs: maybe the you know, the community he was around and the
David Griggs: environment of the sort of nature of dealing with addiction
David Griggs: or any sort of mental health problems during that time
David Griggs: was probably a lot harder than it is now. So, yeah, but,
David Griggs: you know, I think people are also very good actors,
David Griggs: you know, like he might have been really good at
David Griggs: not letting people in as much as they thought they
David Griggs: were getting let in. I mean, I don't know, I'm
David Griggs: just sort of trying to analyse it. He was obviously
David Griggs: alone when he passed and that just sort of, yeah,
David Griggs: in a way, he was escaping, but at the same time
David Griggs: he was hiding it, you know?
Fenella Kernebone: Natasha Walsh is a portrait artist who explores emotions and
Fenella Kernebone: inner turmoil through her work. She told us in the
Fenella Kernebone: last episode how that work can at times have a
Fenella Kernebone: detrimental effect on her own mental health, but she absolutely
Fenella Kernebone: understands the compulsion to create, no matter what. I mean,
Fenella Kernebone: you work as an artist, this is your job, right?
Fenella Kernebone: But what is it? What is the compulsion to create?
Fenella Kernebone: Describe that for me.
Natasha Walsh: It's like if you were asked not to speak and
Natasha Walsh: you have to not say anything and not write. But
Natasha Walsh: you go around in the world and you're experiencing everything,
Natasha Walsh: that feeling of, can you imagine, like if I told
Natasha Walsh: you to spend a day, you're not allowed to speak
Natasha Walsh: or write - that feeling, that's like when I'm not doing anything. It's
Natasha Walsh: almost like speaking isn't enough. And, actually, it's not great
Natasha Walsh: because I find that when you say something, people hold
Natasha Walsh: you to that. They say, 'This is what you meant'.
Natasha Walsh: My interpretation of what you said is what you meant.
Natasha Walsh: Whereas if you communicate with senses, it has more nuance
Natasha Walsh: and what you say can constantly evolve and change. So
Natasha Walsh: it keeps the authenticity of, of your response to things,
Natasha Walsh: does that make sense? So that's why I need to create.
Natasha Walsh: Because I, if I don't make work about what I'm
Natasha Walsh: seeing and experiencing, I feel like I'm being asked not
Natasha Walsh: to say anything and told not to say anything. And
Natasha Walsh: it doesn't really matter if people don't see it necessarily,
Natasha Walsh: like I don't know. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't
Natasha Walsh: hear you. If you talk to yourself, you just need
Natasha Walsh: to do it. You know, it's that eternal struggle that
Natasha Walsh: you kind of face not just if you're a painter,
Natasha Walsh: but if you're any kind of, if you're trying to
Natasha Walsh: create anything and that, I kind of I think we
Natasha Walsh: get addicted to that struggle, that that that anger, that struggle,
Natasha Walsh: that passion, that sometimes the creative jealousy that fuels you
Natasha Walsh: to do things you're not going to achieve it, and
Natasha Walsh: that's not necessarily the point. If you don't achieve it,
Natasha Walsh: it's not that you failed. The point is the struggle and,
Natasha Walsh: and that's that's the joy, you know what I mean?
Fenella Kernebone: Do you think that Whiteley was addicted to his art?
Natasha Walsh: I feel like all artists are too, you know, because it's,
Natasha Walsh: well sometimes I wonder, like I can only say, to
Natasha Walsh: ask that question, to think about that question, in regards
Natasha Walsh: to Whiteley's work, I look at my own experience with
Natasha Walsh: regards to myself because if he's addicted, then I'm also addicted.
Natasha Walsh: So I mean, I have actually consciously asked myself, is
Natasha Walsh: this an unhealthy addiction? Because it kind of follows, it
Natasha Walsh: seems to follow that, doesn't it, that like you can't
Natasha Walsh: not do it? And when you're doing it, you're sometimes
Natasha Walsh: making yourself ill with it. But it's definitely a constructive addiction.
Natasha Walsh: I don't know, because sometimes, I sometimes feel like the
Natasha Walsh: artist is their art. You are your work, so it's like,
Natasha Walsh: 'how do you, how do you not be? How do
Natasha Walsh: you not be that?'
Fenella Kernebone: Brett Whiteley was clearly dealing with inner demons. You can
Fenella Kernebone: see that in much of his work, particularly his self portraits,
Fenella Kernebone: where his face is often depicted as peering inwards, struggling to
Fenella Kernebone: work through his deep fear of failure. And by all accounts,
Fenella Kernebone: even before Brett was addicted to heroin, he was addicted
Fenella Kernebone: to his art. As Wendy explained, he lived life with
Fenella Kernebone: an intensity full of big ambitions, leaving no room for failure.
Fenella Kernebone: But can you untangle Brett Whiteley from his addictions? Many
Fenella Kernebone: say genius and pain go hand in hand. Brett was -
Fenella Kernebone: in many people's opinion - a genius. Sadly, his demons persisted
Fenella Kernebone: throughout his triumphs, resulting in the tragedy of his too
Fenella Kernebone: early death. But his legacy lives on.
Fenella Kernebone: Thank you to this episode's guests: Anne Ryan, Wendy Whiteley,
Fenella Kernebone: David Griggs, Natasha Walsh and Steve Kilbey. This podcast has
Fenella Kernebone: been brought to you by the Brett Whiteley Studio in
Fenella Kernebone: collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales. You
Fenella Kernebone: can visit Brett Whiteley's studio in Sydney from Thursday through
Fenella Kernebone: to Sunday. Admission is free. I'm Fenella Kernebone . Thanks for
Fenella Kernebone: joining me.