WEBVTT - The heroin clock 0:00:00.540 --> 0:00:03.690 A quick heads-up: in this series we talk about drug use, 0:00:03.700 --> 0:00:06.149 mental health issues and there's a bit of swearing. 0:00:18.030 --> 0:00:18.570 Welcome to the Brett Whiteley Studio. Have you been here before at all? 0:00:18.579 --> 0:00:21.870 I'm Fenella Kernebone , and this is 'Art, life and the other thing'. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:26.160 on which this podcast was made, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. 0:00:26.170 --> 0:00:29.630 Throughout this series, I sit down with some of Australia's 0:00:29.630 --> 0:00:33.170 most exciting contemporary artists and curators to talk about the 0:00:33.170 --> 0:00:36.130 artist Brett Whiteley, his work and the impact he has 0:00:36.130 --> 0:00:41.169 had on their careers. In each episode, we focus on 0:00:41.170 --> 0:00:44.420 one of Brett's artworks, looking at the story behind the work, 0:00:44.430 --> 0:00:47.400 the issues surrounding it and the impact it had on 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.059 the Australian art landscape. Today we're looking at one of 0:00:51.060 --> 0:00:53.840 his lesser-known artworks, though it's a piece that says a 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.460 lot about the artist himself and his inner struggles. 0:00:58.940 --> 0:01:02.070 The Brett Whiteley studio in Surry Hills [Sydney] is a converted 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.179 old t-shirt factory with this mezzanine space upstairs, and this 0:01:06.180 --> 0:01:09.030 is where his studio is. When you enter, you see 0:01:09.030 --> 0:01:12.590 a stereo, a side table with trinkets, a few records. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.440 And then there's this clock hanging in the centre of 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.390 the wall. A lot of the time people don't even 0:01:18.390 --> 0:01:20.370 notice it. It looks similar to a clock that you'd 0:01:20.370 --> 0:01:23.700 find hanging on anyone's living room wall. But if you 0:01:23.700 --> 0:01:25.990 stop and take a closer look, you'll see that the 0:01:25.990 --> 0:01:30.160 clock has two faces and a gallery label just underneath. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.060 It's then that you realise, this is no ordinary clock. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.650 This work is called 'The heroin clock' . It's from 1981. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.860 This is Anne Ryan, curator of Australian art at the 0:01:40.860 --> 0:01:42.790 Art Gallery of New South Wales. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.850 It's two clock faces, one of which is working, and 0:01:46.850 --> 0:01:49.810 it's showing the time as it is today. And the 0:01:49.810 --> 0:01:54.670 one on the right is similar, but the hands are still, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.960 and the numbers have all become compressed at the top 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.760 of the circle of the clock. So instead of the 0:02:00.940 --> 0:02:04.040 numbers one through to twelve, being as we would expect 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.130 to find them on a clock face, they've all kind 0:02:06.130 --> 0:02:09.619 of compressed together. And so it's a, it's a sculpture, 0:02:09.620 --> 0:02:13.570 and it's a work about the compression of time that 0:02:13.570 --> 0:02:19.350 one experiences when one is under the influence of heroin. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:29.470 To see the piece online, go to agnsw.art/bwspodcast. Brett Whiteley 0:02:29.470 --> 0:02:32.989 used and was addicted to heroin for years. It's a 0:02:32.990 --> 0:02:36.650 subject he confronts openly in many of his works, most 0:02:36.650 --> 0:02:40.510 famously in his Archibald Prize-winning self-portrait , 'Art, life and 0:02:40.510 --> 0:02:44.559 the other thing', which featured a syringe attached onto the canvas. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.760 Here's Anne again, about the role addiction played in Brett's life. 0:02:49.340 --> 0:02:52.160 I think some of us have addictive personalities, and whether 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:58.540 that's about food or illicit drugs or sex or anything, 0:02:58.550 --> 0:03:01.290 I think some people have a propensity towards that. A 0:03:01.290 --> 0:03:05.550 lot of creative people do as well. Brett Whiteley came 0:03:05.550 --> 0:03:09.870 of age at a time when illicit drugs were becoming 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.690 more prevalent in the West. At a time before society's 0:03:14.700 --> 0:03:19.350 reaction to that - whether that be legal or social or cultural - 0:03:19.350 --> 0:03:22.370 had evolved the way it is today. And a lot 0:03:22.370 --> 0:03:27.489 of creative people saw a way of changing their perception 0:03:27.490 --> 0:03:30.450 of the world, whether that be through alcohol or any 0:03:30.450 --> 0:03:35.820 other method, as a way of gaining insight into something 0:03:35.820 --> 0:03:39.790 that might not be otherwise accessible. So people focused a 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.150 great deal on that because it is a sort of 0:03:43.730 --> 0:03:51.780 slightly scandalous, interesting thing about Brett Whiteley and his life. 0:03:51.790 --> 0:03:55.880 But I think he was from a long line of 0:03:55.890 --> 0:04:00.750 creative people who were seeking a truth, and they were 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.710 working out how to find that how to get there. 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.500 And that was one of the ways that he did, 0:04:06.500 --> 0:04:09.360 of course, ultimately led to his demise. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.260 Was he addicted to art? 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.560 I think artists who are driven to create are probably 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:20.900 addicted to art. There is a compulsion with a true artist, 0:04:20.900 --> 0:04:26.300 whether they be a songwriter or a dancer to do 0:04:26.300 --> 0:04:29.120 that thing because they need to do it. It's something 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.470 that gives them energy. It's something that gives them solace. 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:39.850 It's their way of trying to push. They're questioning about 0:04:39.860 --> 0:04:42.020 being in the world, and I think I've worked with 0:04:42.020 --> 0:04:46.510 many artists of different stages of their life and their career, 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.380 and the ones who are still creating the really interesting 0:04:50.380 --> 0:04:53.560 work in their 70s and 80s and 90s are the 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.039 ones who are still scratching away at that itch and 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.599 doing it every day and getting in the studio and 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:06.250 making the work. When you stop the struggle, that's when 0:05:06.250 --> 0:05:09.060 you stop being interesting, and I think for an artist 0:05:09.060 --> 0:05:12.810 like Brett Whiteley, it was as essential as breathing. And 0:05:12.810 --> 0:05:17.770 I think for any true artist they have to do 0:05:17.770 --> 0:05:20.990 what they do, because for them it's the reason that 0:05:20.990 --> 0:05:23.190 they get up in the morning, and it's the thing 0:05:23.190 --> 0:05:25.260 that presses them to create great work. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.930 Looking back, it's easy to speculate that perhaps Brett was 0:05:30.930 --> 0:05:34.630 using heroin to self medicate, to slow down his frantic 0:05:34.630 --> 0:05:38.790 or even melancholy thoughts. But his former wife, Wendy Whiteley, 0:05:38.790 --> 0:05:41.950 says it's more complicated than that. Here she is in 0:05:41.950 --> 0:05:44.350 a talk recorded live at the Art Gallery of New 0:05:44.350 --> 0:05:45.150 South Wales. 0:05:45.540 --> 0:05:47.810 He could go into a space where he just switched off. 0:05:47.900 --> 0:05:50.130 People would come to me and say, 'what did I do wrong?' 0:05:50.130 --> 0:05:52.180 You know, he was so friendly a minute ago and 0:05:52.180 --> 0:05:56.950 then suddenly, bang! Life was always intense for him, he had 0:05:56.950 --> 0:06:00.160 set himself very high goals. He loathed the feeling of 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.920 failure in himself in particular, he set himself up against 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:09.990 some pretty amazing other artists in all forms, but mostly 0:06:09.990 --> 0:06:12.800 painting and that's what he wanted to achieve. And when 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.369 he didn't, he got very depressed, very dark. And then 0:06:17.370 --> 0:06:20.630 of course, you know – I'm not telling you anything you don't already know – the 0:06:20.740 --> 0:06:24.740 drug addiction wasn't helping. It seemed to for a while, and the 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.400 kind of sense of being able to be still for 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.299 a while and feel relaxed, really one was comatose. But it 0:06:32.300 --> 0:06:35.630 felt like being relaxed at the time until you become 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.060 addicted to it. And then it becomes its own problem. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:43.490 You know, all drugs, all things that you love can 0:06:43.490 --> 0:06:47.970 have that in a way, the attachment to anything: to 0:06:47.970 --> 0:06:52.870 a car, a house, a painting can have that dark side effect, 0:06:52.870 --> 0:06:57.760 but with heroin it was the struggle, a complete moral dilemma. 0:06:58.740 --> 0:07:01.600 When we talk about Brett's drug addiction, it is important 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.670 to remember that this was in the 1980s. The scene 0:07:04.670 --> 0:07:07.710 and culture around drug taking was very different to what 0:07:07.710 --> 0:07:08.760 it is today. 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.700 In Australia it didn't exist in the middle classes. It was a pretty 0:07:13.700 --> 0:07:17.160 boozy culture, it still is Australia, you know, the rite of 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.140 passage was about booze, not about particularly drugs. In those days, 0:07:21.140 --> 0:07:24.020 if you were a bit you know, veering off to the left, you 0:07:24.020 --> 0:07:27.980 might smoke a bit of marijuana, but the use of opium, 0:07:27.980 --> 0:07:32.160 heroin, all these new drugs have come since then, speed, everything, didn't 0:07:32.170 --> 0:07:32.950 exist then. 0:07:33.740 --> 0:07:37.350 It was also a massive part of the alternative rock scene, 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.380 and there were a lot of actors, musicians and, yes, 0:07:40.390 --> 0:07:43.290 artists who were caught up in it. To help us 0:07:43.290 --> 0:07:47.420 understand this period of time, I invited Australian rock icon 0:07:47.430 --> 0:07:50.800 Steve Kilbey to the Brett Whiteley Studio. He's part of 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.650 the iconic band The Church, but today you're just as 0:07:53.650 --> 0:07:57.400 likely to find him painting. Brett and Steve share more than 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.820 painting in common. Both had early success in their careers 0:08:00.830 --> 0:08:04.540 as artists. Both were addicted to heroin, and both had 0:08:04.540 --> 0:08:07.680 studios in Surry Hills where they worked and partied. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.160 We were both heroin addicts at the same time, and 0:08:12.740 --> 0:08:16.780 I really envied him because I thought how great it 0:08:16.780 --> 0:08:18.350 would be to be able to sell a painting and 0:08:18.350 --> 0:08:20.840 get the money and go and buy the smack. Whereas me, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.710 I got to wait for these periods 'til my royalties come in. 0:08:24.730 --> 0:08:27.960 And so I was envious of that. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.270 Though he admits to not being a huge fan of 0:08:31.270 --> 0:08:34.460 Brett's work, I wanted to know what he thought about 'The heroin clock' 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.449 and about the impact the drug has had on his 0:08:37.460 --> 0:08:38.760 own creative life. 0:08:39.340 --> 0:08:42.510 I'm not exactly sure what he's getting at there, but 0:08:42.510 --> 0:08:45.940 everything's topsy turvy and fucked up, I guess, and time 0:08:45.940 --> 0:08:53.260 has no meaning. It's more like a speedo [speedometer] than a clock isn't it? Yeah. 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.040 I mean, there are two things that for me that 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.970 make life stop and music isn't one of them, but painting is. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.199 And when I'm painting, um, even though I'm not a 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.770 very great painter or a good painter or anything, when 0:09:07.770 --> 0:09:11.569 I'm painting, um, I go into a non verbal world 0:09:11.570 --> 0:09:15.400 where my mind stops talking and chattering. I'm a pastellist, 0:09:15.410 --> 0:09:17.459 so I've got a big box of pastels and I 0:09:17.460 --> 0:09:19.670 look at the painting. I look at my box of 0:09:19.670 --> 0:09:23.870 pastels and something says, 'grab that one' but I sort 0:09:23.870 --> 0:09:28.900 of stop. After a while, I stop. It's, there's no words. 0:09:28.910 --> 0:09:31.810 It's just all going. Something in me is going. This 0:09:31.809 --> 0:09:34.150 needs to be bigger here, and this needs to be darker, 0:09:34.150 --> 0:09:37.410 and you need to get some black there, and I'm 0:09:37.410 --> 0:09:40.540 just sort of there in the colours and sort of 0:09:40.540 --> 0:09:42.730 in it. And in fact, when my children were coming 0:09:42.730 --> 0:09:45.080 and go, 'Hey Dad!' I go, 'Oh!' It's sort of like 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.770 being woken, woken out of a dream. And the other 0:09:47.770 --> 0:09:52.520 state that did that for me was drugs. Heroin, and 0:09:52.530 --> 0:09:55.430 painting never coincided for me, because by the time I 0:09:55.429 --> 0:10:01.180 started painting, I'd stopped taking heroin. But, um, with music, 0:10:01.179 --> 0:10:04.880 I wanted to capture this sort of slow down sort 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:11.220 of bassy, sort of detached feeling and heroin, I went through 0:10:11.220 --> 0:10:16.850 a honeymoon period with it for about a year where it greatly enabled, 0:10:16.850 --> 0:10:19.150 I thought, and it gave me a sort of feeling 0:10:19.150 --> 0:10:22.640 to capture. But after a while, after about a year, 0:10:22.650 --> 0:10:25.960 I made music despite heroin. Not because of it. 0:10:26.740 --> 0:10:29.430 Both Brett and Steve had talent, and it's a talent 0:10:29.429 --> 0:10:32.230 that they shared with the world, a part of themselves they gave 0:10:32.230 --> 0:10:35.290 away in each song or painting. I wonder what that 0:10:35.290 --> 0:10:35.730 would have felt like. 0:10:36.990 --> 0:10:42.360 You know, one night in 1986, me and my then girlfriend knocked out a song 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:47.189 in three minutes and you know, if that, and you 0:10:47.190 --> 0:10:50.020 know by various processes that got on an album, a 0:10:50.020 --> 0:10:54.970 record company got behind it. And now, 32 years later, 0:10:54.970 --> 0:10:58.660 everybody walks around talking about this song and, you know, 0:10:58.660 --> 0:11:00.160 I do it here and I do it there and 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.550 all of that, but I'm sort of I'm sort of 0:11:02.550 --> 0:11:05.300 detached from it. And I'm like, I don't know. I 0:11:05.300 --> 0:11:07.590 don't know what to do with it. I wish I 0:11:07.590 --> 0:11:10.170 could take it all in and cheer myself up. You know, 0:11:10.170 --> 0:11:13.170 when I wake up on a cold morning and I've 0:11:13.170 --> 0:11:15.540 got to go to the dentist and I'm lonely and 0:11:15.540 --> 0:11:18.369 scared and I wish I could go, 'Hey, I wrote 0:11:18.370 --> 0:11:21.910 this iconic song', and go 'Right, I'm ready to take on the world'. 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.650 And obviously it didn't like, didn't do it for Brett, either. 0:11:25.630 --> 0:11:33.200 There's a real parallel, despite all his success and being 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.520 an icon and all the money he had and having 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.960 this house and all the other stuff, he wasn't feeling 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.319 the love, either. I used to think when I was 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.170 a kid, I thought, 'boy, if I was famous and 0:11:44.179 --> 0:11:47.620 playing guitar and girls are screaming, I'd be the happiest 0:11:47.620 --> 0:11:50.000 guy in the world' and I found out that was 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.929 not the case. It didn't sort of, it didn't cure 0:11:52.929 --> 0:11:56.420 all of my problems at all, and nor did heroin 0:11:56.429 --> 0:12:00.559 and nor did being famous. And obviously it didn't work for Brett, either. 0:12:01.340 --> 0:12:04.579 So I guess, I guess there is a parallel between 0:12:04.580 --> 0:12:08.349 his painting and his paintings and my songs. Um, it 0:12:08.350 --> 0:12:11.689 doesn't sort of it's hard to, it's hard to squeeze the 0:12:11.690 --> 0:12:14.590 juice out of them and drink it and go, 'Wow!'. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.690 You just always, you always sort of detached from the 0:12:18.690 --> 0:12:21.170 stuff you create yourself, 'cause you know how you've done it, 0:12:21.170 --> 0:12:23.560 so it doesn't it doesn't really impress you. 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.589 The existential search for meaning, a seeking of answers, enlightenment, 0:12:28.590 --> 0:12:30.720 whatever it is that Brett might have been trying to 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.780 do through his art, none of that is new, but the 0:12:33.780 --> 0:12:38.180 relief that he sought - in painting, alcohol, sex and drugs - today, 0:12:38.190 --> 0:12:40.620 that might be viewed in a different light. We can 0:12:40.620 --> 0:12:43.680 understand how this might work through the art of David 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:48.309 Griggs, who we also spoke with in the previous episode. His Archibald 0:12:48.309 --> 0:12:53.020 entry in 2009 called 'Zoloft nation', focused on the prescription 0:12:53.020 --> 0:12:56.520 drugs he relies on to help him with depression. While 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.720 his work is dark, it's also full of colour, humour 0:12:59.730 --> 0:13:02.930 and fun. Here he is talking about the influence Brett's 0:13:02.929 --> 0:13:05.860 life and legacy has had on his own career. 0:13:06.340 --> 0:13:09.050 You know, even as a younger artist trying to sort 0:13:09.050 --> 0:13:13.540 of grasp what that means... his lifestyle became more interesting than 0:13:13.540 --> 0:13:16.250 the work at the end, which is sad. I mean, 0:13:16.250 --> 0:13:21.339 this sounds really weird, but in a way, it was 0:13:21.350 --> 0:13:24.370 because of the way he passed it was like, it made 0:13:24.370 --> 0:13:29.679 you sort of re-question like what you were doing. You know, so like, 'Oh, geez, like, 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.520 I gotta be careful' or I shouldn't ... you don't want 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.220 to go out like Whiteley. That's sort of interesting that 0:13:37.220 --> 0:13:42.900 I think is subconsciously there for artists, particularly painters, for sure. 0:13:42.900 --> 0:13:49.439 Because there is that feeling where you get so distraught 0:13:49.450 --> 0:13:54.449 in what you're doing and the complexity of the struggle 0:13:54.450 --> 0:13:57.219 is completely difficult, you know. 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:03.650 Yeah. It's an addiction. It's a compulsion to continue to create, but also 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.900 to create you've been doing it under the influence in some 0:14:06.900 --> 0:14:09.030 ways to help you along or to propel you to 0:14:09.030 --> 0:14:12.800 a certain point, you know, suddenly to not have it anymore. For some artists, 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.010 they talk about, well, 'I'm going to lose the ability' 0:14:15.010 --> 0:14:17.100 or not, I don't know. That's what, I mean, Whiteley used to 0:14:17.100 --> 0:14:17.480 talk about that, I think. 0:14:20.740 --> 0:14:23.650 I've been trying to lay off cigarettes for years and years, 0:14:23.650 --> 0:14:26.830 but it's that thing where, you know, the studio. I mean, 0:14:26.830 --> 0:14:29.090 at the moment, you can't smoke in the studio. And 0:14:29.090 --> 0:14:32.830 it took me months to be able to actually paint 0:14:32.830 --> 0:14:35.510 without even having a cigarette. It was hard. It was 0:14:35.510 --> 0:14:42.850 really hard. Just not having that mental crutch for creativity, whatever 0:14:43.270 --> 0:14:43.860 it is. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.900 Can we have a look at 'The heroin clock' around the corner? 0:14:48.940 --> 0:14:54.590 It's like real time versus mashed up time. Heroin time, addiction time, maybe it's 0:14:54.590 --> 0:14:56.820 art time when you're in the zone or something like that. 0:14:57.060 --> 0:14:59.020 Yeah, I get it. I get it. That's why the 0:14:59.020 --> 0:15:02.880 numbers are crunched up at the right. Okay. I, yeah, 0:15:02.890 --> 0:15:07.290 that makes sense. And the '3' is like where the '7' 0:15:07.290 --> 0:15:09.890 would be. No. What the hell? No. The '7' is where the ... Anyway, yeah, 0:15:10.630 --> 0:15:11.910 it is completely mashed up. 0:15:11.940 --> 0:15:16.460 Yeah, the '3' is where the '7' should be. It's all gone to dust. 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.770 But it's interesting that he even though he mashed it up, 0:15:19.780 --> 0:15:22.760 he still used the clock as a literal sort of 0:15:22.940 --> 0:15:26.330 visual device. instead of doing it as a painting, so 0:15:26.330 --> 0:15:29.050 that's sort of interesting. He felt he could get that 0:15:29.050 --> 0:15:32.560 message across easier with that. 0:15:33.540 --> 0:15:36.340 In the previous episode, we talked to David about how 0:15:36.340 --> 0:15:38.690 hard he worked to climb his way out of a 0:15:38.690 --> 0:15:42.710 very debilitating bout of depression, eventually getting his life back 0:15:42.710 --> 0:15:46.190 on track. It's a place that Brett was sadly not 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.750 able to reach, which perhaps explains the key difference between 0:15:49.750 --> 0:15:53.980 David's Archibald entry with 'Zoloft nation' and Brett's with 'Art, 0:15:53.990 --> 0:15:56.880 life and the other thing'. While both are about the 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.260 mental state of the artists, they tell different stories. 0:16:00.780 --> 0:16:04.260 You know and then you come through this window and then weirdly, 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.790 over a very slow time and a lot of hard 0:16:07.790 --> 0:16:11.510 work, you almost get your life back, you know? You have to pretty 0:16:11.510 --> 0:16:14.460 much go through hell, which a lot of people that 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.290 have this sort of ailment will understand. And I think 0:16:18.290 --> 0:16:23.700 with that painting, I was like, 'Oh, well, let's just spell 0:16:23.700 --> 0:16:27.550 it out in the title, you know: "Zoloft nation".' And it's sort 0:16:27.550 --> 0:16:30.600 of just my way of saying, 'Oh, you can look 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.050 at this painting and you can think about mental health 0:16:33.050 --> 0:16:35.540 and you can think about this artist experience of this 0:16:35.540 --> 0:16:39.870 and that.' But what was really humbling from that experience 0:16:39.870 --> 0:16:44.160 was the painting became therapy, like you might even be 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.720 breaking down and having the most horrible day. But if 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:51.710 you can just, like, push through and just even do 0:16:51.710 --> 0:16:55.530 20 minutes of painting, it can sort of trigger something 0:16:55.540 --> 0:17:00.030 innately in you that can you know... And when you make 0:17:00.030 --> 0:17:04.680 those little breakthroughs in the hardest moments, you will always 0:17:04.690 --> 0:17:05.560 get better. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.320 So does the process of creating art function as a 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.820 form of therapy, or does the drive to create art that 0:17:13.820 --> 0:17:17.629 inspires and changes the world send people crazy or is 0:17:17.630 --> 0:17:18.680 it a bit of both? 0:17:18.750 --> 0:17:21.210 I mean, you know I think people talk about Brett 0:17:21.210 --> 0:17:23.720 as [if] it's like a dance, you know, it's this thing, this 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.470 very poetic notion of the painter dancing with the brush. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.790 But for me, it's a bit more aggressive than that. 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:37.080 I don't know if I'd say I'm poetic at all, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:43.040 but it's definitely a very physical, physically and mentally draining 0:17:43.050 --> 0:17:46.560 thing to do that. I think unless you really delved 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:51.170 into painting as a thing, you can't sort of grasp it, 0:17:51.180 --> 0:17:54.359 you know? Um, so you know, if I, if I 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.670 see friends that are also painters and you can just 0:17:57.670 --> 0:18:01.250 sort of see it in them, they might feel run 0:18:01.250 --> 0:18:04.840 down or look run down. But then other days they're uplifted, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.430 and it's got nothing to do with home life. It's 0:18:07.430 --> 0:18:10.240 like I know what's going on in the studio just 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.280 from looking at you, you know? And that is that torment 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:21.109 that is that pleasure but it is also that daily traumatic 0:18:21.109 --> 0:18:24.860 experience of, yeah, the struggle, but — 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.010 Just doing the work. 0:18:28.010 --> 0:18:34.140 — just doing the work. But you know, and I think people don't get this, so 0:18:34.350 --> 0:18:38.850 for any people, anyone that's say dating an artist, just 0:18:38.850 --> 0:18:43.630 remember that their brain is on this 24 hours a day. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.910 I mean, yeah, you can cut off and maybe do 0:18:45.910 --> 0:18:51.320 whatever and distract from that train of thought, but you 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.190 sort of can't, you know? So just, yeay, be a little — 0:18:56.670 --> 0:18:56.990 Be kind 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:57.629 — be kind. 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.270 Is it an addiction? 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.560 Oh yeah, completely. I mean, the longest I've had off painting, 0:19:06.540 --> 0:19:10.860 probably since I was 18, would have been about three months. 0:19:11.740 --> 0:19:15.970 And there's a moment within that time – usually I won't take 0:19:15.970 --> 0:19:21.340 more than three, four weeks ever - there's something completely missing in 0:19:21.350 --> 0:19:24.500 your being, you know? And then you remember, 'Oh, that's right, 0:19:24.500 --> 0:19:28.350 I haven't been painting, of course.' You know, and then, there 0:19:28.350 --> 0:19:31.450 is this nice thing when you have a gap of time, 0:19:31.460 --> 0:19:34.320 that's not too long, but not too short where you 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:38.110 start to miss it. And that's the moment when it 0:19:38.109 --> 0:19:41.720 feels really, really nice to paint again because you've come 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.350 to that threshold, so to speak, of not painting, and 0:19:46.140 --> 0:19:48.760 you just need it. You just got to do it. But, 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.340 you know, being in the zone stuff, sometimes it'll just happen. 0:19:52.350 --> 0:19:55.530 You might, you know, I mean, there's times I'll sit 0:19:55.530 --> 0:19:59.710 on my sofa and just be like, 'What's going on? 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.650 I don't know what to do.' But you've got this show 0:20:01.650 --> 0:20:04.530 coming up, and then you sort of push yourself to 0:20:04.530 --> 0:20:08.129 do something. And three hours later you forgot all about 0:20:08.140 --> 0:20:11.280 that feeling, you know? Or there's other days you feel really good 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.490 and 'Yeah, I'm going to do this painting', and then 0:20:13.490 --> 0:20:16.390 you're like, 'Oh.' So you just don't know when it's going 0:20:16.390 --> 0:20:21.520 to happen. Yeah, it is. It's really, you can't gauge every day what's 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:23.100 going to unfold. Yeah. 0:20:23.109 --> 0:20:25.320 I don't know about Brett, but it sounds like he 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.510 struggled through to the very end. I'm just wondering if 0:20:28.510 --> 0:20:31.000 there's a comment to be said that you might have 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.800 already talked about it before about what happens when you 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.409 don't go and get the help that you need. 0:20:36.540 --> 0:20:40.860 Well, you're going to, you're gonna crash. I mean, there's 0:20:40.859 --> 0:20:43.560 just no doubt about it, you know? And I think 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:49.440 maybe the you know, the community he was around and the 0:20:49.450 --> 0:20:54.920 environment of the sort of nature of dealing with addiction 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.619 or any sort of mental health problems during that time 0:20:57.619 --> 0:21:03.690 was probably a lot harder than it is now. So, yeah, but, 0:21:03.690 --> 0:21:06.640 you know, I think people are also very good actors, 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:11.760 you know, like he might have been really good at 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.630 not letting people in as much as they thought they 0:21:15.630 --> 0:21:17.609 were getting let in. I mean, I don't know, I'm 0:21:17.609 --> 0:21:23.200 just sort of trying to analyse it. He was obviously 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.510 alone when he passed and that just sort of, yeah, 0:21:28.410 --> 0:21:31.149 in a way, he was escaping, but at the same time 0:21:31.150 --> 0:21:32.430 he was hiding it, you know? 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.220 Natasha Walsh is a portrait artist who explores emotions and 0:21:40.230 --> 0:21:43.669 inner turmoil through her work. She told us in the 0:21:43.670 --> 0:21:46.560 last episode how that work can at times have a 0:21:46.570 --> 0:21:50.660 detrimental effect on her own mental health, but she absolutely 0:21:50.660 --> 0:21:54.910 understands the compulsion to create, no matter what. I mean, 0:21:54.910 --> 0:21:56.720 you work as an artist, this is your job, right? 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.409 But what is it? What is the compulsion to create? 0:21:59.420 --> 0:22:00.669 Describe that for me. 0:22:01.140 --> 0:22:04.690 It's like if you were asked not to speak and 0:22:04.690 --> 0:22:08.810 you have to not say anything and not write. But 0:22:08.810 --> 0:22:11.360 you go around in the world and you're experiencing everything, 0:22:11.369 --> 0:22:14.490 that feeling of, can you imagine, like if I told 0:22:14.490 --> 0:22:16.369 you to spend a day, you're not allowed to speak 0:22:16.369 --> 0:22:20.350 or write - that feeling, that's like when I'm not doing anything. It's 0:22:22.060 --> 0:22:26.330 almost like speaking isn't enough. And, actually, it's not great 0:22:26.340 --> 0:22:30.350 because I find that when you say something, people hold 0:22:30.350 --> 0:22:32.590 you to that. They say, 'This is what you meant'. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.369 My interpretation of what you said is what you meant. 0:22:35.380 --> 0:22:40.840 Whereas if you communicate with senses, it has more nuance 0:22:40.850 --> 0:22:45.430 and what you say can constantly evolve and change. So 0:22:45.430 --> 0:22:52.030 it keeps the authenticity of, of your response to things, 0:22:52.030 --> 0:22:55.260 does that make sense? So that's why I need to create. 0:22:55.260 --> 0:23:00.230 Because I, if I don't make work about what I'm 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.590 seeing and experiencing, I feel like I'm being asked not 0:23:04.590 --> 0:23:08.510 to say anything and told not to say anything. And 0:23:08.510 --> 0:23:15.149 it doesn't really matter if people don't see it necessarily, 0:23:15.420 --> 0:23:17.130 like I don't know. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't 0:23:17.130 --> 0:23:19.240 hear you. If you talk to yourself, you just need 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.750 to do it. You know, it's that eternal struggle that 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.679 you kind of face not just if you're a painter, 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:28.700 but if you're any kind of, if you're trying to 0:23:28.700 --> 0:23:32.270 create anything and that, I kind of I think we 0:23:32.270 --> 0:23:35.880 get addicted to that struggle, that that that anger, that struggle, 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:41.600 that passion, that sometimes the creative jealousy that fuels you 0:23:41.609 --> 0:23:44.840 to do things you're not going to achieve it, and 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:47.460 that's not necessarily the point. If you don't achieve it, 0:23:47.470 --> 0:23:50.770 it's not that you failed. The point is the struggle and, 0:23:51.140 --> 0:23:54.260 and that's that's the joy, you know what I mean? 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:57.360 Do you think that Whiteley was addicted to his art? 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.950 I feel like all artists are too, you know, because it's, 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.990 well sometimes I wonder, like I can only say, to 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:08.960 ask that question, to think about that question, in regards 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:11.490 to Whiteley's work, I look at my own experience with 0:24:11.490 --> 0:24:15.530 regards to myself because if he's addicted, then I'm also addicted. 0:24:15.530 --> 0:24:20.300 So I mean, I have actually consciously asked myself, is 0:24:20.310 --> 0:24:26.910