Leading Hunter artists are joining forces at Timeless Textiles Gallery on Sunday to raise urgently needed funds for a young man fighting stage four cancer. Art Auction 4 Jac will feature donated works from a who's who of local artists including Michael Bell, John Cliff, Janet Clouston, Dino Consalvo, Stephen Cornwell, Trevor Dickinson, Ileigh Hellier, Gwynneth Jones, Jane Landers, Paul Maher, Susan Ryman, Kris Smith, Sue Stewart, Bridie Watt, Graham Wilson and Sally Wondergem.
The auction will be conducted by Newcastle cabaret performer Denise Gold, who is making a one-day-only return from retirement. Registered charity, the Cooper Rice-Brading Foundation, will match funds raised dollar-for-dollar.
Money raised will help 23-year-old Jac Mathot pay for costly experimental treatment of his stage four Ewing sarcoma - a rare and complex bone and soft tissue cancer which mostly affects teenagers and young adults and has a notoriously poor survival rate. The tumours are frequently misdiagnosed, either as growing pains in younger patients or as a sporting injury.
“I had pain in my shoulder blade for a while before I visited the GP,” Jac says. “I assumed it was from a work or sports injury, so I wasn't too worried about it. But then I felt a lump, like a swollen bruise.” By the time his sarcoma was diagnosed in May 2024, the tumour in Jac's shoulder blade was 10 centimetres in diameter and the cancer had spread to other parts of his body, including his spine and hip.
Remarkably, Jac now is tumour free and receiving experimental treatment with a promising new type of cancer medicine called Enhertu. The treatment, which aims to prevent recurrence of the sarcoma, costs $12,500 every three weeks. “Thanks to the Cooper Rice Brading Foundation, family, friends and other donors, I've now been on the new therapy for eight months and I'm feeling pretty good,” Jac says. “But the longer I can afford to stay on Enhertu, the better my chances in the long term.”
Jac's father, Mark Mathot, credits his sister Linda Alcorn (Jac's aunt) with being “the brains behind Art Auction 4 Jac”. “The thing I've learned since Jac was diagnosed in May 2024 is that people are incredibly kind, and incredibly generous,” he tells Weekender. “He was 22, he'd just finished uni, he'd graduated with a Bachelor of IT, he'd moved into an apartment with his partner Gin, and he'd just landed a great graduate position with a company in Sydney,” Mark says. “He was just starting his adult life and then this happened.”
