Pat Larter, Pat’s anger, 1992. Acrylic and mixed media on board. Courtesy: the artist and Art Gallery of New South Wales, gift of Frank Watters 2018. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. © Estate of Pat Larter

The Art Gallery of New South Wales announces the first solo exhibition in a public art museum of Australian artist Pat Larter. Spanning more than 20 years of Larter’s art practice, Pat Larter: Get Arted, reveals a collaborative, provocative, witty and joyful body of work that challenges conventions and stereotypes of female desire, sexuality and how the female body is reproduced and consumed by society.

Moving across performance art, film, mail art and eventually to painting, Larter’s work from the 1970s to mid 1990s blurred the roles of wife, muse, collaborator, subject and artist to explore ideas about gender and the body. From her home in Luddenham, west of Sydney, Larter became one of the major voices in the international – and fiercely anti-establishment – mail art movement, coining the term ‘femail’ art.

Co-curator Lisa Catt said Larter was and still is most recognised as the muse of her partner, fellow artist and collaborator Richard Larter.

“Pat Larter: Get Arted seeks to address the lack of institutional recognition Pat received during her lifetime,” said Catt. “From her performances – where the traditions of vaudeville and burlesque theatre meet 1970s gender and body politics – to her transgressive and bawdy contributions to the mail art movement, Pat’s work is both a provocation and a delight to encounter.”

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