Books and food in art
How books influence paintings for artist Katherine Hattam
The above painting is by Melbourne-based Katherine Hattam. It is currently hanging in the Sulman Prize exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW where it stopped Sophie in her tracks a few weeks ago. Isn’t it glorious!!
Big and bright, this painting is an arresting love letter to books and reading. And we are thrilled to welcome its artist to our little corner of the internet for this afternoon’s Something to Eat and Something to Read Q&A.
But first, a quick note to say that our next episode of the podcast will be ready for your ears here on Friday August 9. And in the meantime, in case you missed any, please catch up on our back catalogue here.
Katherine’s work often features and is inspired by books and reading. She has an exhibition on right now in Sydney called While Reading Wifedom (at Nanda/Hobbs Contemporary Gallery until August 10). Get there if you can!
In her words,
“reading and painting are each important to me and influence each other, though not directly. Ie, I don’t paint about a book but a book which influences me will help influence a painting. But books, pages and spines do become part of paintings, totally unrelated to the contents of the book.”
Germaine has also read and loved Wifedom by Anna Funder, particularly her creative non-fiction writing style, moving in and out of memoir, fiction and biography. This combination brought to life a woman who was written out of history – George Orwell’s wife Eileen. Anna asks many questions throughout the book, including how a woman can be made invisible by domesticity and then by history and how this still happens to women today. Her book has created quite an impact in the world and Katherine’s artwork is a wonderful example of the creativity that has flowed thanks to Anna’s words.
It is a book that holds many truths, as Anna herself explained in an interview:
“I began to understand that I would, after all, be able to write a book that contained two kinds of truths: an emotional one, drawn in scenes using Eileen’s real letters. And a factual one, with, as it turned out, 40 pages of endnotes, to describe what really happened, what Orwell and his biographers omitted, or buried in footnotes, or couldn’t see. I thought in this way I might make Eileen live again in our imaginations and in her own words, as well lay bare the mechanisms of patriarchy by which a woman, even one as remarkable as she, can be erased.”
Let’s get back to Katherine now and what she also reads and cooks, and how these may all influence her art.
What was the last book that you read and LOVED! And why?
Don Watson’s The Passion of Private White.
I loved its account of who we are and its look at the 1990s. The Vietnam War, La Trobe University and an aboriginal community.
What was the last meal you paid for or made and LOVED? And why?
Breakfast in Sydney. Poached eggs, coffee and orange juice. I rarely go out for dinner so its breakfast.
What’s your go-to comfort read?
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is one of my go-to comfort reads - it first became important to me in my 20s, and I have read and reread it many times since.
There are a couple of other books important to me, not so much as comfort reads, but which have spoken very directly to me as well as just being totally enjoyable - one is Helen Garner's How To End a Story, which I read when it was first published . It is not only funny but a great feminist book undercover. More recently Anna Funder’s Wifedom rewrites a story, horrifying rather than funny and again through feminist eyes. So a comfort read for me can also be tough and clear sighted.
What’s your go-to comfort food?
Porridge is a comfort food for several reasons. I grew up with an English mother, and we often had porridge for breakfast, so it has childhood memories for me. I lived for over 20 years on working farms, and porridge was our regular breakfast. It keeps you full throughout the day, so it is not just instant comfort.
A cookbook you are cooking out of at the moment?
I return to Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion on a regular basis.
You get to invite four of your favourite writers over for dinner, who are they and what will you cook them?
Deborah Levy, Colm Toibin, Doris Lessing and Kim Mahood.
I would cook a shoulder of lamb, boiled potatoes, asparagus and a green salad.
All of this talk of painting and creating reminded Germaine of this quote from Matt Haig’s book The Humans. Isn’t it wonderful!?
“Humans are lost. And that is why they invented art: books, music, films, plays, painting, sculpture. They invented them as bridges back to themselves, back to who they are.”
Sophie- I love this list. Not familiar with Haig's work, so I'm glad you introduced me to this. Hope all is well? Cheers, -Thalia