‘Madame Lash was a character I created, but when I dressed as her, everything was possible!’

THE northern beaches is full of amazing characters and interesting stories. This week we talk to artist and former dominatrix Gretel Pinniger, aka Madame Lash.

Gretel Pinniger with her portrait of the 1995 Sydney Symphony Orchestra at home in Palm Beach. Photo: Martin Lange

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MADAME Lash is the creation of a girl who wanted to break out of being Alice in Wonderland.

Gretel Pinniger - best known as the former dominatrix Madame Lash - talks to the Manly Daily about life as her famous Sydney alter ego.

My mother preserved mine and my brother’s innocence with genius. We were the opposite to abused children – we were held back by a firm hand.

I was very uncomfortable and sought to break out of it.

Pinniger with some of her paintings from the 1960s. Photo: Martin Lange

When I went to Melbourne University, I got involved with the artists and bohemians of the 1960s and ’70s.

I have always sought the company of artists and musicians and people doing interesting things – those I regard as being well-advanced on the path to human enlightenment, or who are trying.

Madame Lash is just a creation. Everyone believes she has a history of her own, but of course she doesn’t.

A part of Pinniger’s house, complete with dungeon, is up for rent on Airbnb.

To hide the fact I was anything but promiscuous, I portrayed a character, who, when I dressed as her, it seemed anything was possible. I carried a whip - the first time a woman had.

Those days were before AIDS so it was sexually permissive.

However, I didn’t have that sort of nature.

I’m 71, and I am an old hippie. I haven’t changed my values in all those years. I am still an art and fun lover and a live and let liver. Why don’t we want to live in a place that’s full of interesting byways and places to go?

Madame Lash with a client at her home in 1974.

Who wants to be in a homogenised, washed-clean city with nothing going on except bars where you have to pay $15 to prop up a bar and look at other people?

Why would people want to dress in the same in uncomfortable high heels with nothing to do or see, or answer to internet dates and get taken to such places?

That’s what I tried to create at my church The Kirk in Cleveland St – to open it up for people to have fun in a safe environment.

My home is on Airbnb and it gets hired for parties and hens’ and bucks’ parties, and I still throw parties myself.

Pinniger in her studio at home in Palm Beach.

My 69th and 70th were both amazing parties. I am famous for painting through most of my parties.

I’ve been painting all my life and I can’t be anything else.

For me it is a compulsion. Probably 90 per cent of my waking life is spent in my studio painting – but I haven’t finished one in 20 years!

The painting I am pictured with is of the 1995 Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

I painted it after I was given the task of doing a painting that depicted the orchestra to raise funds. It has been offered to Sydney as a gift, and I would love for Sydney to take it.

Several of my paintings were done in the 1960s when I was on acid trips.

I never took an acid trip without doing a painting. It’s permanently affected my vision – I see all dimensions of things.

As Madame Lash in 1974.

Pinninger with ex husband Dieter and their son in 1981.

Acid opened the doors of perception back then. I’m not attracted to the drug taking scene today. It has gone in a very different direction to when I was young. Back then there weren’t the criminals who run things and the cartels.

I don’t drink or smoke, but in my time I have tasted the best Bordeaux wines, I have drunk 1945 Chateau Latour (the year of my birth) more than once.

I have loved a chef and had a great lover who was an ardent gourmet! I have tasted the best of life.

My son lives with me. You’d have to ask him what I am like as a mum, but I hope I’m a good one. I am a divorced single parent and I have created a home that is hard for him to leave.

Pinniger with her painting of the 1995 Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

I have said many times to my son, “Fly little fledgling, fly!” but he hasn’t yet.

The wildest thing I’ve probably done is standing for election to the senate in 1996.

It was the election before Pauline Hanson appeared and I might have inspired her to realise a woman could stand up and get publicity for her own causes.

Of course I was coming out as an art and fun lover, which isn’t Pauline by any means. I was doing my own thing as an art statement and I didn’t expect to be elected.