Gordon Bennett - Portrait and a Wet Dream (Historicism) (1993-95) - A Collect and find photographs of a wide variety of people of different ethnicities, cultures and physical appearances. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels? In the Home dcorseries Bennett used gridded compositions that refer to the paintings of Dutch artistPiet Mondrian (1872 1944). Bloody handprints are stamped across the walls. This central motif governs the composition which, similar to Calverts original etching upon which the painting is based, is largely reduced to a schema of black and white forms. Who was Gordon Bennett? The works I have produced are notes, nothing more, to you and your work Gordon Bennett 1. How does Bennetts use of appropriation reflect an interest in some of the moral and ethical issues associated with this practice. Outsider depicts, a decapitated Aboriginal figure standing over Vincent van Goghs bed, with red paint streaming skywards to join with the vortex of Vincents starry night. Some of Prestons appropriations however, demeaned and trivialised the way Aborigines were depicted and understood. ), Heide Museum of Modern Art , Melbourne, 2004 pp. while Bennett may have attempted, in recent years, to disconnect from the politics of his earlier practice, there is also a sense within these paintings, of the impossibility of such a task. (#100) GORDON BENNETT - Sotheby's One reason is that I felt I had gone as far as I could with the postcolonial project I was working through. These signs can also be read as evidence that disputes the claim that Australia was discovered terra nullius or nobodys land. The jack- in- the box is surrounded by symbols, including the grid- like buildings and alphabet blocks, of the knowledge, systems and structures that represent an enlightened, civilised society. This education resource accompanies the retrospective exhibition Gordon Bennett (2008) which showcased 85 works by this internationally acclaimed Australian artist. They communicated important Christian stories to the congregation. 2014. How does this work compare with conventional self-portraits? Gordon Bennett | MCA Australia The distorted and exaggerated features of the form incorporate qualities that appear animal and human, male and female. Even when the starting point for a work is an emotive one, I believe I conceptually examine the ideas behind the emotion and extrapolate from there Gordon Bennett1. The grotesque also interested Bennett as a means of disrupting conventional ways of seeing and understanding. In Unassailable heroes (Sweet Damper) Famous since Captain Cook, 1996 the motifs and symbols suggest issues and questions related to history and representation that concern Bennett. An orphan from a very young age, she was raised on Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission in Queensland, and later trained as a domestic at Singleton. At the same time I have resisted being positioned as a spokesperson for my people since I do not have nor do I seek, such a mandate by declining to speak about my work. From early on in his successful career, curtailed by his death in 2014 at age 58, he was well-known for disrupting the status quo with his unique visual language. The final panel in the sequence of six images in Untitled is a black square. Research references to existing images in Gordon Bennetts The nine richochets (Fall down black fella, jump up white fella) 1990. While Bennetts art is grounded in his personal struggle for identity as an Australian of Aboriginal and AngloCeltic descent, it presents and examines a broad range of philosophical questions related to the construction of identity, perception and knowledge. Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Gordon Bennett lived and worked in Brisbane before his unexpected death in 2014. However Bennetts illusionistic representation of the rugged terrain and billowing clouds reflect a style of painting traditionally associated with European Romantic art. People tend to focus on the emotional aspect rather than the conceptual when interpreting my work, and that bothers me. Bennetts pictures leave us with questions rather than answers, with complexities rather than simplicities as if the origins of truth, identity and ideology are in metaphors and signs rather than in things, and hence are layered and relative Ian McLean 1. Brushing aside the tempting opportunity to ridicule many frames of reference in that sentence (I mean, don't get me . Gordon Bennett (1955-2014) created the triptych Bloodlines 1993 early in his career. Investigate the theories and ideas associated with anthropology, ethnography and phrenology. The dresser draw labelled self is closed while the drawers for history and culture are ajar. Gordon Bennett 1, Bennetts Aboriginal heritage came through his mother. ART215: Topic 10 - Urban Aboriginal Art - Pinterest He used weapons or gum tree branches as props, to construct an image that reflected European ideas of Aboriginal types. Indeed, he explains that before the age of sixteen he was not really aware of his Indigenous heritage. 5. These contrasting and complex meanings and ideas are not accidental. GORDON BENNETT AND HIS RACES From the Book: Die Gordon Bennett Ballon Rennen (The Gordon Bennett Races)by Ulrich Hohmann Sr along with articles by others.Many of his contemporaries have considered Mister James Gordon Bennett to be a spleeny American. The imagery in this painting focuses on binary opposites, including the Aboriginal figure and various symbols of European and Indigenous art and culture . Roundels relating to symbols that denote significant sites in Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting also appear. Among these was the harrowing struggle for identity that ensued from the repression and denial of his Aboriginal heritage. It is uttered by all good Muslims before a good deed. The viewer does not confront the artist, but self. Calverts image becomes one of the layers of the painting. How ideas might be encountered from different places and events interest him. Traditionally these arches were built by the Romans to celebrate victory in war. The focus on designer style in these interiors, the lack of human presence, and the flat areas of colour with simple black outline, creates a strange feeling of emptiness that sets them apart from Bennetts art. It has been designed for teachers and students to instigate discussion and investigation, and includes learning activities relevant to history and visual arts that can be adapted to different levels. While 2007 was a brilliant year for Bennett's secondary market results, with eight works sold of which . He serves as a counterpoint to Gordon Bennetts Other, and yet we are the one and the same. The emphasis on making art about art which was the focus of his non-representational abstract paintings, contrasts clearly with the focus on social critique that was integral to Bennetts earlier work, and was intended also to make people aware that I am an artist first and not a professional Aborigine.2 In this respect, Bennetts non representational abstract works, despite their overt emphasis on visual concerns, may be seen as reflecting his engagement with questions of identity, knowledge and perception. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . His use of the perspective diagrams to frame and contain the figure of his mother alludes to the impact the values and systems of European culture have had on the lives of Indigenous people. You might consider, scale, materials and techniques, perceptual effects. Gordon Bennett, born on 16 April 1887 at Balwyn, Melbourne, was Australia's most controversial Second World War commander. The installation is filled with images of his family and Constructivist-style drawings made by the artist. I needed to change direction at least for a while. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. Using this list, find a range of artworks that you could appropriate to help communicate your personal identity visually. Perhaps in this sense Citizen represents an Australian everyman who recognises the wrongs of history and racist representations, but who has no real interest in going any further in asking hard questions about why they happened and what impact they caused. In just three generations, that heritage has been lost to me. The linear diagram that frames the kneeling figure of Bennetts mother in the central panel of Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire, and the diagrams in the lower sections of the two side panels, are typical of illustrations that explain the principles of linear perspective. Gordon Bennett | Possession Island (Abstraction) (1991) | Artsy ), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2007, p. 101, Gordon Bennett, Conversation Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett, p. 97, the visual qualities and symbolism of art elements such as colour and shape, the symbolism and representation of subject matter/content (including text), the appropriation of the work of other artists, the presentation of the artwork (ie. Its like images become part of the Australian unconscious. What is your personal interpretation of the abstract paintings? Looking closely at the central panel we realise that the luminous sky is described with the dots that Bennett used in early works to signify Aboriginal art. 85 ides de GORDON BENNETT | toile de lin, basquiat, art australien It alludes to ownership and territory. He drew on and sampled from many artists and traditions to create a new language and a new way of reading these images. Like words, visual images, forms and elements are powerful signifiers of meaning. Australian politics is fraught yet the Australian public is disengaged. 1 0-5-30 j RED STAR Now 35 oft on all RED STARRED SIWFMIMUIS IliMMS . Other aspects of the image, including the flat, stylised shapes of the head, reflect connections to both Western abstract art and Indigenous art traditions. This led him to adopt an artistic alter ego, John Citizen. I had never thought to question those narratives and I certainly had never been taught at school to question them only to believe them. Bennetts referencing, appropriation and recontextualisation of familiar images and art styles challenges conventional ways of viewing and thinking and opens up new possibilities for understanding the subjects he explored. New perspectives on familiar images and stories are presented.