Husband and wife Marc and Gillie Schattner are international award winning artists and Archibald Prize finalists. Gillie, born in London in 1965 and Marc born in Melbourne in 1961 have been painting together for the last 15 years and have exhibited their art all over the world. Most of their artwork appears as diptychs. They work collaboratively on the same art piece combining their talent to arrive at a single vision. Every aspect of the art piece has both their minds and hands on it, reflecting their individual passions and influences in life.
Marc Schattner studied Graphic Design at Swinburne, Melbourne. Gillie Schattner is a self-taught artist. They have had solo exhibitions in Sydney, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and Belgium.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Their art meshes figurative expressionism and Pop Art to explore themes of contentment and happiness. Gillie and Marc are fascinated by the things that give us pleasure, the things that make us happy, the things that make life worth living, and they make art which embodies that quest. Gillie and Marc Schattner’s art draws on their work in the fields of graphic design and advertising, as well as Gillie’s experiences working as a registered nurse.
They have worked with the Smile Foundation, The Black Dog Institute and Australian Red Cross Blood Service.
They are also portrait artists, and were recent finalists in the Archibald Prize. Specialising in children, pets and celebrities. Their subjects include Rhonda Birchmore, Scarlett Johannson, John Konrad, Archbishop Pell, Dr Harry Cooper, Jimmy Little, and the late Peter Brock.
Marc and Gillie have had over 30 solo exhibitions.
Drawing on their backgrounds in advertising and graphic design, Gillie and Marc use typical elements of commercial art, product packaging and advertising to create artworks which are pure Pop.
Gillie and Marc’s spattered acrylic diptychs are inspired by their love of the Pop Art movement – especially artists such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and Burton Morris – and are also a response to the four years they spent living in New York. Their work Modern addiction also includes a range of sculptures by Gillie and Marc Schattner. This work is again inspired by popular culture, taking its imagery from advertising, graphic design and the world of everyday objects, blowing them up into larger than life images, and disrupting the perfectly smooth surfaces of advertising through their use of highly-textured brushwork.
- Writers:
- Schattner, Gillie & Marc
Olivia Bolton
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2015
