ALL WHITELEY
Wendy Whiteley will be at the Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival to speak at the screening of a documentary about the legendary artist Brett Whiteley
O ne of the highlights at this year’s Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival is the critically acclaimed, award-winning feature documentary Whiteley, which tells the dazzling story of iconic contemporary Australian artist, Brett Whiteley. Through archive footage, animation, and reconstruction, the film builds a profound and revealing picture of a complex, uniquely talented and sometimes perplexing individual.
“Brett had a sort of code,” remembers the artist’s former wife and lifelong muse, Wendy, who will be in Launceston for a presentation prior to the screening. “Sometimes people would say to me ‘what the hell was he talking about, can you translate?’ And, of course, I was absolutely intimate with the code, so I had no problem understanding it. But sometimes he could get a bit surreal for people.”
Wendy says Brett talked in images and it was often quite hard for people who don’t think visually to get that.
“He couldn’t read for too long, because he was so speedy,” she says. “He’d get halfway down the page and then spin off into an idea of what to do, visually, with what he’d just read. He could get messy too. He had a studio but he liked having certain people for company, and he’d want to come upstairs in the house, with [the couple’s daughter] Arkie and I, and friends. And then there’d be ink spilt on rugs and it’d all have to go in the bath and get washed, including the drawing half the time!”
Looking forward to the festival and hopeful of seeing her former husband’s vast work, The Naked Studio, at Mona (“I’ve never seen it hung”), Wendy says she first saw the documentary Whiteley at the world premiere last year, at the St George Open Air cinema in Sydney.
“It was amazing. Brett’s big harbour pictures got blown up to cinema size and there was a packed audience,” she says. “It was a bit overwhelming in a way. During production I had a bit of detachment, a bit of a work hat on, you know? You don’t allow yourself to sink into it and get emotionally involved.”
For Wendy, there is much to be emotional about. After 27 years with Whiteley, she separated from him in 1988, four years before his death in 1992 from an accidental overdose in a motel in NSW, and in 2001, the couple’s only child, actor Arkie, died of adrenal cancer. She has since immersed herself in the creation of her ‘secret garden’ near her Lavender Bay home in Sydney, and has helped to establish the Brett Whiteley Studio, in Surry Hills. She now presents the annual Brett Whiteley Travelling Arts Scholarship for young, emerging artists, which was founded by the artist’s mother, Beryl, in 1999.
“I’ve been trying to encourage a wider section of people to apply – urban Aboriginals, more women – just to get a sense of it not being for any one kind of person.”
The BOFA Film Festival will be held at Launceston’s Village Cinemas from May 17-20. Film tickets are $17.50 ($16.50 concession), visit breath-of-fresh-air.com.au for details. There will be a red carpet screening of Whiteley on Friday May 18, at 8.30pm. Wendy will also attend a cocktail party at Design Tasmania, in Tamar St, Launceston. Tickets for the cocktail party cost $35. To book go to wendywhiteley.eventbrite.com.au