The Interterrestrial Manifestation Of Bertie Blackman

There is a tradition of pop music acts moonlighting in the visual arts - from David Bowie to Patti Smith to Donna Summer. Now Sydney singer-songwriter Beatrice "Bertie" Blackman is participating in the Sunshine Coast's boutique Maroochy Music and Visual Arts Festival (MMVAF) for the second year as a conceptual designer, not performer.

"James Birrell, who's the director of the festival, and the Birrell family are very old friends of mine," Blackman begins cheerfully, from her current Melbourne base. "So, when everyone was first talking about starting [the festival], I was around. They were talking about art. I said to James that I'd really love to be involved a few years consecutively, getting to help transform the stage into something with a bit of 'Bertie touch', rather than being on stage and singing - for something kinda different."

In 2016 Blackman's space-themed project, entitled MICANAUT, will comprise "big, giant banners" with her artwork on the sides of "the Ampi" main stage - to be headlined by Matt Corby, Peking Duk and Ngaiire. "Mica is a character that I've invented who is a little girl who traverses the earth in a giant spaceship," Blackman says. "Part of her journey is she's gonna be stopping in at this festival and hanging out side of stage and egging the crowd on, pretty much." In fact, the quirky astronaut is an abstraction of Blackman herself. "She's actually based on a seven-year-old Bertie." The imagery, she adds, is "slightly surreal".

As one of MMVAF 2016's visual artists, Blackman will be in good company since Amanda Parer — today famed internationally for her giant, glowing bunnies — is returning to unveil her latest installation, Fantastic Planet.

Ironically, Blackman is yet to perform at the fest. The ARIA-winner suggests that this is because she's had no fresh material, last airing 2014's electro-pop album The Dash. (Mind, Blackman did recently collaborate with Urthboy, resulting in the single Long Loud Hours.) "There's a chance I might hop up on stage at some point, but we shall see."

Blackman is throwing herself into divergent creative enterprises. She has teamed with director Nick Waterman to make a short film, the rodeo-inspired After The Smoke, co-writing the screenplay and scoring it. Cred actor Sam Reid (Belle) stars. And she's authored and illustrated a children's book. As Blackman talks, she's organising her first solo art show at Melbourne's commercial Lindberg Galleries.

The daughter of renowned painter Charles Blackman, Bertie has long explored her own art practice, but admits she's "not been public about it" - music the focus. "For me being an artist, it's all about what you're compelled to do. I guess lately I've been feeling much more compelled to be painting and drawing than I have been feeling like being in the studio all the time. So I just follow my heart and my instincts with it." Blackman views her artistic endeavours as a continuum. But, to an extent, she pragmatically believes that musicians need to be "more multi-faceted" now that they earn less in the age of streaming. Regardless, Blackman is planning a sixth album. "I'm working on new music at the moment - in amongst everything else." And we could see - or hear - more of Mica, she teases. "It is a character that I have been developing for a while that I feel will turn into something musical."