Brett Whiteley - Difficult Pleasure

Directed by Don Featherstone

The program starts with a look at Whiteley's studio — a Pandora's Box in which there are clues to his free-ranging talent. He talks of being "born with a gift" and the desire to test and abuse that gift, to enhance it with addiction but ultimately to share it. Whiteley is seen at a huge blank canvas as he makes the first strokes. During the film this work reaches completion. The artist talks of eroticism - the major driving force behind his painting and one of the themes of the film. The landscapes of Byron Bay, Sydney Harbour, Oberon, and Tuscany dissolve between reality and his paintings. The film-makers travel with him and his girlfriend to London where he makes a drawing in a London cab. He then visits the Chamber of Horrors at Madam Tussaud's and talks of his Christie series of paintings. Whiteley's greatest influence is Francis Bacon and in the film he embarks on a major portrait ultimately destined for the Archibald Prize competition.