Interview with Gillie Schattner

Gillie and Marc Schattner

'The world depends on contemporary artists to challenge life as we know it.' Gillie Schattner

Gillie, born in London in 1965 and Marc born in Melbourne in 1961 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 & Belgium.

They are international award winning artists and Archibald Prize Finalist and have painted together for the last 15 years. According to Gillie and Marc Schattner, happiness can be found only by accepting what you have in the present.

1.     What was your first job?
My first job was in Belgium working as a receptionist/personal assistant in a headhunting firm. It was multilingual and they were looking for someone that could communicate in English, French, German and Dutch. My mum is Dutch so that was easy and my French and German were pretty good because I had studied them at school in my final years. So I got the job. It was very challenging but I loved it.

2.      What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was little I wanted to be a famous film star.

3.      What does your job involve now?
I am an award winning international contemporary artist and Archibald Prize finalist. I paint with my husband Marc on the same canvas and the same time. We have been painting together for the last 16 years. We have exhibited all over the world and have had over 30 solo exhibitions and are hung in prominent corporate and gallery collections. We are also published authors with our recent children's/gift books 'The Happiest Day of My Life' and 'The Perfect Gift'.

4.      Are you thinking of trying your hand in anything else? 
Painting is my passion, I picture myself doing this until the day I die.

5.      What is the biggest challenge you face at work?  
The only challenge I face is that we like to paint very large canvas's and sometimes we have trouble getting them into our studio.

6.      What is the best part of your job? 
The best part of my job is that I get to do it with the person I love.

7.      What is your advice for people starting out in your industry? 
My advice is that if you are really serious about becoming a full time artist it is important to get a good gallery to represent you so that you can do the artworks and someone else with the right marketing skills can sell them for you. It can be quite difficult to get a gallery and we found that getting recognition through art competitions can help.

It is important to get out there and show your work once a year or once every 2 years so people get to know you and collect your work.

8.      What makes you happy?
It makes me happy hanging out with my family, eating fish and chips on the beach with my children and running in Centennial with my beautiful golden retriever Moby.

But most of all I just love having coffee with my husband, we talk endlessly, nothing beats that.