AN ECONOMIST seems an unlikely candidate to become a body artist, but that's the story of Julie Tattam's career change.
"I got asked to face paint the children in the cancer wards of Randwick and Westmead Hospitals," Tattam said. "The children have to be on chemotherapy for seven hours, and I thought I would expand on it to make a career."
The Grays Point woman has embraced her new art form with a vengeance.
Her most recent venture was painting a mermaid for the Oyster Festival in Sydney.
Now a multi-award-winning body painter and owner of Australia's biggest body painting agency, Skincognito Bodypainting, her work has appeared on television, in feature films, the theatre, music videos and advertisements.
She has body painted for feature films such as Gods of Egypt with Gerard Butler, Bryan Brown and Geoffrey Rush.
She is the owner of the only body painting-specific training institute in the world (Global College of Body Art), is the producer and host of The Body Art Show, an interviewer on the US body painting television show Skin Wars, and has appeared on Australian television's Sunrise and The Footy Show.
She supports the Australian Body Festival in October which culminates in a three-day creative collaboration of body painting, fashion, street art, music, photography, beauty and street culture.
The festival will be in the Sunshine Coast hinterland arts hub of Eumundi from Friday to Sunday, October 16-18. See more and a video here.
Forget Me Not Australia is the festival's official charity partner and 10 per cent of tickets sold will go to it to help vulnerable, displaced and trafficked children in India, Uganda and Nepal.
■ What do you think of body painting as art?
