The award-winning artist will recreate Hogarth’s The Enraged Musician to the sounds of the Australian Art Quartet.

“We have a man trying to play what looks like a violin, with his hands clasped over his ears in despair because outside there are all these people on the streets, screaming baby, barking dog and he just can’t concentrate because of the racket,” artist Wendy Sharpe tells me over the phone, describing the scene depicted in William Hogarth’s engraving The Enraged Musician. But while the streetscapes of Sydney in 2017 look a little different to London in 1741, when Hogarth created his famous artwork, there are plenty of parallels that can be drawn.

“It’s about a crazy, noisy city, and there is a musician trying to practise, trying to compose, trying to have some time to think about what he’s doing, and being interrupted by all the noises around him,” she says. “As I’m talking to you I’ve got the neighbours getting some work done to their house, some kind of machine whirring now. Obviously as a musician that really is annoying. If I’m painting, I can just turn the music on or the radio on or something on, and get...