Margins: Del Kathryn Barton
Beloved for her intricate paintings, artist Del Kathryn Barton’s first feature film Blaze draws upon the two-time Archibald winner’s otherworldly aesthetic to explore a young girl’s experience as witness to a horrific attack.
Image credit: Julia Savage as Blaze (film still) in Del Kathryn Barton, Blaze, 2022. ©Causeway Films
Renowned Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton debuted her feature film Blaze – starring Simon Baker, Yael Stone and the young Julia Savage as the eponymous Blaze – at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival. Barton masterfully blends animation, live-action and puppetry to champion resilience and the healing power of imagination.
Thank you for your time, Del. I’m thrilled to be speaking with you about your debut feature film, Blaze. Could you tell me about the premise for the film and where the project originated?
Always a hard question! I’m not really the kind of creative who has that single, light-bulb moment. The starting point, and it’s a very unconventional starting point for film craft, was a monumental painting that I made for my first survey show with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) titled sing blood-wings sing (2017). It was informed by my enduring love
of the nostalgic tune ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’.
I remember hearing the story as a little girl
and feeling incredibly sad that little Jackie Paper grew up and didn’t return to his best friend, Puff. That was the premise of the painting, which is in essence a celebration of when a
girl has her first period, that moment we come into a certain power. In this case, there were four iterations of my interpretation of Puff
with these young maidens acrest his/her back. We used that painting in the opening scene, and it sets a certain tone for the film.
When we transition from childhood into adulthood, I have this sense that we shouldn’t let our inner selves, our inner dragons, crawl ...Subscribe to read this article in full
