As part of his 40th career anniversary celebrations, 81-year-old Inverloch artist, John Mutsaers, will hold three exhibitions this year.
The first has already been shown at the East Gippsland Art Gallery in Bairnsdale. In his next show he will work in collaboration with a group of Gippsland writers. John says he has long been fascinated by the intersection of the visual and literary arts.
To mark his August exhibition at the Gippsland Performing Arts Centre in Traralgon, curated by Gabriella Duffy of the Latrobe Regional Gallery, he wants to work with writers who will respond to a series of his paintings and drawings, based on his own childhood.
Each writer will be paired with a painting and a drawing. Between them will be a cue card. John says it could be a quote and the connection might not be immediately obvious.
John has set himself similar challenges in the past: in 2020 he received 35 submissions when he asked Gippsland writers to respond to his exhibition The Infinite Birdcage.
In 2009, John challenged a group of writers to respond to one of his enigmatic paintings, Dressed in Cohen. One writer was moved to write over 10,000 words.
“And they were good!” John says. This time he’s thinking around 1000 words, more or less.
The drawings will depict the interests of a 12-14-year-old boy of John’s era – the mid-1950s. While John grew up in the Netherlands, he says “that’s not really the point”.
“It could be set anywhere and be about any boy of that period, real or imagined.”
The 12 selected writers will be very much a part of the exhibition, which opens on August 12 and runs until October 15.
The project is being run in conjunction with the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.
The writers will be invited to attend a creative writers’ workshop with a professional writer. A manuscript of the writings, along with John’s paintings and drawings, will be submitted to a publisher, giving the authors the prospect of a permanent record of their participation.
