Spiders, sex and death – Del Kathryn Barton’s new film

Barton is turning her considerable artistic talents to film-making as the recipient of a 2015 Australian Film Television and Radio School Creative Fellowship (AFTRS).

Now in their sixth year, the $50,000 fellowships provide funding for artists from a diverse range of creative backgrounds to create distinctive new works.

Barton, a graduate of UNSW Art & Design and a two-time Archibald Prize winner, will use her fellowship to create RED, a dual-screen work that will delve into themes of passion, sex and death, drawing on the legends and symbolism of the female red-back spider.

"The core idea of the film is sexual cannibalism," Barton told the Sydney Morning Herald. "Only two animals in the world actively assist the female to cannibalise them after mating. The redback does it by somersaulting over the female's mouth and offering himself to her to eat. It's an extraordinarily brutal and poetic scenario."

This is Barton’s second foray into film-making – she premiered her first cinematic work, Oscar Wilde's Nightingale and the Rose at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. The short film was co-directed with Brendan Fletcher and featured the voices of actors Mia Wasikowska, David Wenham and Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush.

Barton was recognised with a UNSW Alumni award last year. The Awards recognise the success and leadership of the University’s most outstanding graduates. The artist thanked UNSW Art & Design (formerly COFA) saying she “believed it to be one of the most important art schools here in Australia, nourishing the life-blood of our culture”.

Art & Design Master of Arts candidate Angelica Mesiti was also awarded an AFTRS Creative Fellowship in 2011. Her video Citizens Band, produced during her Fellowship, has been exhibited nationally and internationally and won the Art Gallery of NSW Anne Landa Award for video and new media arts.