Episode 7: Pat Brassington on childhood, the familiar and the fantastical
Season 2: Lutruwita | Tasmania
Episode 7: Pat Brassington on childhood, the familiar and the fantastical
Pat Brassington reflects on her childhood in Hobart and how the notion of the island influenced her as she was growing up. Pictured at Cornelian Bay by Peter Whyte.
We are in conversation with Pat Brassington, one of Australia’s most significant and influential artists. Over four decades, Brassington has captivated audiences with her ability to transform the familiar into the fantastical through her enigmatic photomontages.
This conversation is recorded as a radio play where a voice artist performs Brassington’s responses to my questions.
In this episode we cover:
how Brassington’s childhood in Hobart has influenced her practice. At a young age, Brassington contracted polio. She was confined to her bedroom for six weeks and experienced a heightened feeling of isolation. This experience, in combination with catching tadpoles with her brother and playing in suburban backyards, sparked her artistic imagination.
how Tasmania and the concept of isolation influenced her artistic imagination,
Brassington’s exploration of contradictions, inspired by dialectics, surrealism and psychoanalysis,
her use of distortion, symbolism, and the provocative use of pink, and
insights into her lens-based practice, blending straight photography with manipulated images to evoke unsettling yet captivating emotions.
BIOGRAPHY
Pat Brassington is one of Australia’s most significant and influential artists. In a career that spans four decades she has become recognised for her incisive ability to infuse the familiar with the fantastic to create enigmatic and ambitious photomontages that capture the emotional force of memory. Her practice is informed by an interest in surrealism, feminism and psychoanalysis.
Brassington’s work has featured extensively in national and international solo and group exhibitions and her work is held in all major Australian state, regional, university and private collections. In 2018 she was the recipient of a Creative Australia for Visual Arts Award in recognition of the achievements of an artist who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to Australian Art.
Gallery representation: Bett Gallery, Hobart and Arc One Gallery, Melbourne
