The Collections Project

  The artists chosen to undertake research in 2014 are Robin Tatlow-Lord and Deborah Prior at the South Australian Museum and Deidre But-Husaim and Dan Withey at AGSA. But-Husaim will begin her research at AGSA in February. “It’s all in flux because until I get in there and start the research. I don’t really know what I am going to do. But at this point in time I would really like to work with the space – the entire collection as a museum space,” explains But-Husaim. “I am really interested in not just the collection but how people interact in the collection and how they spend time.” But-Husaim’s early work revolved around a fascination with the body and transformation. She was painting images of people who had body modifications and then experimented with painting people and putting her own motifs on them. Then tattooing became mainstream and it began to lose its appeal. “I saw it in an advertisement and thought `I’m not interested in that anymore’. It has become too much like a currency.” This was around the time when there was a lot happening in the world like the Australian floods and fires and the tsunami in Japan, which had a profound effect on But-Husaim. “I used to love making paintings of people I didn’t know. I felt if I didn’t know them then I could change them. They were more malleable to me.” These tragic events caused But-Husaim to look inward and start painting her immediate world – she began painting portraits of people she knew and still lifes of her studio space. “I guess you could call them still lifes but I feel they are more of a self portrait because they are all the things that are in my space.” While it’s difficult for But-Husaim to know what work will come out of the four months’ research she will undertake as part of the Collections Project she is planning to build on the painting The Lesson. The work is based on a photograph she took several years earlier at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. “I just came across this group of guys and thought, ‘Wow you never see that’. I was intrigued: who are they, what are they doing?” She kept going back to the image and then decided to paint the scene along with more detailed sections of it for an exhibition at the Adelaide Central School of Art last year. “I was thinking about starting a new body of work and then this opportunity came up with Guildhouse and I thought maybe this is meant to be. I am meant to carry on this line.” but-husaim.id.au