World-renowned mother 'force of nature'

PERSPECTIVE: Aratoi director Alice Hutchison, talks about the artwork of her mother, Phillipa Blair, at Aratoi Art Bites.

Aratoi Museum director Alice Hutchison kicked off the second-to-last Aratoi Art Bites on Wednesday with an inside perspective of world-renowned artist, her own mother, Philippa Blair.

This week was the third in a series of Aratoi Art Bites discussion sessions for which members of the community have gathered to listen to talks about artists featured in Aratoi's Rutherford Collection.

Blair's art features near the entrance of the exhibit at Aratoi and more than 30 people gathered on Wednesday to listen to her daughter reminisce on growing up with a world-renowned artist.

"I've been an observer of an artist, you know, for my entire life - for 45 years," Ms Hutchison said.

"To see someone going into a studio and working and painting just became a norm. It's a very unique situation and I think because we have different names it has made it easier to have different lives, and certainly easier to be objective."

Ms Hutchison said the opportunity to talk about her mother from an art historian perspective was rare and unique, which made her nervous before the Art Bites presentation.

"My mother called last night just to make sure I had the notes ready," she said laughing. "I feel very nervous - I think it's because it's things that you take for granted, and then all of a sudden it comes down to the fact that this is the first time ever I have actually given a public talk about her.

"And the work is right here as well - there's a sense that I've got to do this justice.

"It's a part of the collection purchased a long time before I arrived at Aratoi and it was just really fortunate that it was here in the painting racks."

Ms Hutchison launched into the presentation drawing from her experiences from a daughter's perspective and also drew upon her analytical abilities as an art historian to engage the audience at Aratoi. "Most people don't grow up with an abstract expressionist in their family - especially having them cook for you," she said.

"We'd be dragged to openings and it was the last thing my sister and I ever really wanted to do but there was also this incredible force of nature that happened to be our mother and we couldn't really exchange her for a normal mother," Ms Hutchison said.

"I found myself as a writer through her work and have managed to get to this point after 20 years working with artists. That was certainly the introduction to working with artists, to listening to them - listening to what they wanted in terms of making an exhibition with someone, being sensitive to their needs and not dictating what a curator wants to see necessarily but to have an approach to create your collective vision of an exhibition."

The final Aratoi Art Bites will be held on Wednesday, August 12, at Aratoi Museum in which curator Susanna Shadbolt will discuss the works of Gordon Walters.