It must have been around 1970. I would have been about twelve years old.
My parents and I were visiting my godmother, Beryl, at her home in Mosman, Sydney. Beryl had two daughters, and the eldest, Sue, was just a little bit hippie. Truth be told, so was Auntie Beryl. Sue wore long flowing gypsy skirts and had the most beautiful straight hair that fell well past her waist. I remember being so jealous of it.
I was sitting on the floor when Sue came in from the back of the house with a young man I’d never seen before.
He strode into the room and wore baggy, well-worn jeans, some sort of denim jacket, and had a head of wild, untamed hair that today I’d probably describe as almost an afro. They walked through the middle of the room talking before Beryl stopped them to make an introduction.
“This is Brett.”
He was a friend of Sue’s. An artist. Recently returned to Sydney after travelling overseas.
That was all.
The meeting probably lasted no more than a minute or two.
Yet I have never forgotten it.
I had absolutely no idea who Brett Whiteley was. To me, he was simply a stranger passing through my godmother’s lounge room.
But as they crossed the room, I don’t really remember seeing anyone else. My eyes were drawn entirely to him. It’s a strange thing to say after all these years, but it was almost as though he eclipsed everything around him.
People often describe someone as having a presence. That isn’t quite the phrase I’m looking for. There was something almost electric about him. An intensity that seemed impossible to contain. Even as a twelve-year-old, I sensed it, although I had no language to explain what I was feeling.
After he’d left, Mum told me who he was.
She explained that he’d won major prizes, travelled the world and was already considered an extraordinary artist.
Only then did that brief encounter begin to make sense.
Years later, while studying at the National Art School in Sydney, I spent every spare moment I could wandering through galleries. It was there that I finally encountered Brett Whiteley’s drawings.
Standing in front of them, I recognised the same extraordinary energy I had sensed all those years earlier in my godmother’s lounge room. It wasn’t simply the subjects that captivated me. It was the line itself. Confident. Decisive. Alive.
Like so many young artists of my generation, I found myself drawn to his work. His drawings gave me permission to trust a line, to say more with less, and to understand that what is left unsaid can be every bit as powerful as what is rendered in detail.
Years later, around 2000, I returned to figure drawing myself. Looking back now, I can still see traces of that influence. Not because I was trying to draw like Brett Whiteley, but because some artists quietly change the way you see, and that stays with you for a lifetime.
When you look back over your life, certain moments quietly become landmarks.
A special birthday.
Graduating.
Getting married.
Holding your child for the first time.
For reasons I still can’t fully explain, spending a handful of minutes in the same room as Brett Whiteley belongs on that list.
It wasn’t because of anything he said. There was no profound conversation and no life-changing advice. He simply walked through a room, and for a few brief moments I found myself in the presence of someone whose creative energy seemed almost too large to contain.
More than fifty years later, I can still see him crossing that room. At the time, I was simply a little girl watching a stranger walk by. Only later did I realise I had witnessed one of Australia’s greatest artists, long before I understood why the memory had never left me.
Stay Connected
Receive occasional updates on new paintings, exhibitions, studio news and stories from The Art Diaries.
