Collection: Museum of Sydney, Sydney Living Museums Gordon Bennett 1. At the heart of all human life is a concept of self. Possession Island (Abstraction), Gordon Bennett, 1991, Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas. Immersed within a White European culture, he was unaware of his Aboriginality until his early teens. The purer the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. Theosophy means god wisdom, the belief that everything living or dead was put together from basic blocks that lead towards consciousness. It is interesting to note that this same year was declared a period of mourning by Aboriginal people. Discuss with reference to selected artworks by Gordon Bennett. This education resource accompanies the retrospective exhibition Gordon Bennett (2008) which showcased 85 works by this internationally acclaimed Australian artist. However, the cross- like form in Bennetts painting has an image of Bennetts mother, kneeling before it, with a cleaning rag in her hand, recalling her early training and work as a domestic servant under the governments protection. This activity could be done as a group activity with different students researching different dates/events and presenting talks to the class about their significance. I AM is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (19191987) . In Calverts etching, an Aboriginal man holds a drinks tray. She was one of the first Australian artists to recognise the spiritual significance of Aboriginal art and the land. These act as disturbances. John Citizen had his first exhibition in 1995 at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne 2 As an alternative artistic identity, John Citizen not only alerts us to how artistic identity is constructed, it gave Bennett great freedom to be someone other than Gordon Bennett. Bennett's 'unfinished business' was to encourage a great sensitivity and action in terms of these conditions," said Ms Stanhope. Indeed, he explains that before the age of sixteen he was not really aware of his Indigenous heritage. The other was 'Number . The only clearly defined part of Possession Island is the black skinned male figure in the centre. Although there are many forms of Aboriginal art, dot painting is widely seen as synonymous with Aboriginal art since the late 1970s, when the dot painting of the Western Desert attracted unprecedented national and international interest in Aboriginal art. Layers of images superimposed with words. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, this was a time to mourn the devastating consequences of 200 years of colonisation. It acts as a question with many possibilities and answers. How ideas might be encountered from different places and events interest him. At the same time his work demonstrates great conceptual unity and interconnectedness. Bennett investigates the way stereotypes are constructed by exploring words and images in opposites. The first panel of Bennetts triptych, Requiem, depicts Trugannini (c. 1812 1876), a Palawa woman from Tasmania. This painting is based on Samuel Calverts 19th-century etching Captain Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, AD 1770, itself a copy of a lost painting by John Alexander Gilfillan. . What key themes and ideas are explored in the book/film? Thousands of dots fill the canvas. So, painting in an overtly abstract manner was a way to go silent on the issues involved and yet still keep painting. This approach involved a flattening of the picture surface and often the use of disparate visual elements or styles borrowed or copied from different sources. As far as pinning down who John Citizen actually was, Im not interested in doing that. The Notes to Basquiat series takes appropriation to yet another level within Bennetts art practice. Bennett used 9/11 and its global impact three months after the event as the stage for his discourse on cultural identity. Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. This contemporary questioning and revision of the traditional, narrow euro-centric view of history reflects a postcolonial perspective. His "history painting," as he called his large-scale canvases at the time, provoked a radical revision of Australia's past, fueling the meteoric rise of a career that left an indelible mark on Australian art . These images are fused and overlapped in a dynamic composition underpinned by Mondrian-style grids. Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island (1991)*. Experiment with enhancing or diminishing different layers to create a distinctive character. Fundamentally, he deconstructed history to question the truth of the past. He is not disturbed by slashes of paint, but painted carefully and outlined by the precise grid behind him. After years of critiquing art-historical standards, Bennett has himself become the standard bearer. Bennett's art engages with historical and contemporary questions of cultural and personal identity, with a specific focus on Australia's colonial past and its postcolonial present. Its like images become part of the Australian unconscious. Gordon Bennett 3. The strategy of word association subverts the values and meaning traditionally associated with the image. Bennett also had ongoing concerns about how his Aboriginal identity and his interest in subjects related to Aboriginality were framing and hence limiting the way his artistic identity and his work were perceived. However behind the neat facade and pleasantries of suburban life, Bennett was haunted by racism and the same derogatory opinions of Aboriginal people that he quietly endured in the workforce. Gordon Bennett (1955- 2014) was born in Monto, Queensland. 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. Today a monument exists on the site commemorating his arrival. 2. This includes a focus on the role and power of language, including visual representations, in shaping identity, culture and history. McCahon uses I AM to question notions of faith. I was certainly aware of it by the time I was sixteen years old after having been in the workforce for twelve months. * *Collection: Museum of Sydney on the site of the first Government House, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. 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. In Interior (Abstract eye), 1991 a diagrammatic grid overlays an image depicting a group of Aboriginal people in the landscape, seemingly appropriated from a social studies text. These questions include how traditional characterisations of light and darkness have influenced perceptions and experience of race and culture. Do you agree? In Untitled, 1989 Bennett works with a selection of images associated with the familiar story of the discovery and settlement of Australia. Six years after his death at the age of 58, his In Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his other) 2001, Bennett confronts these issues within a global context. Captain James Cook arrived there in 1770 and claimed ownership of the entire eastern coast of Australia in the name of King George III. Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? He quotes directly from this image, which is in fact a copy of a copy, as Samuel Calvert copied this image of Captain Cook landing in Botany Bay from an image by Gilfillan, which is now lost. Both artists have an affinity with Jazz, Rap and Hip Hop music. In this way, Bennett effectively exposes and questions the constructed and value-laden nature of language and history, and how they shape our understanding of the world. How does this work compare with conventional self-portraits? It speaks of colonial violence and the consequences of being on the 'wrong' side of history, purchased in 2019, this powerful and sobering work is a major acquisition for the QAGOMA Collection. Bellas Gallery. Aim to use a variety of strategies in your work to engage the viewer in the issues and questions you are interested in exploring in relation to these binary opposites. Mixing of pure blood with European blood was feared by Europeans, authenticity was at risk and identity diluted. Symbols such as these highlight his awareness and use of visual images, forms and elements as signs. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Compare and contrast Possession Island with one or more of the following artworks: What does this comparison reveal about the relationship between visual images, culture and history? Explore. The Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828) used the power of the grotesque in the Disasters of war series, which depicts some of the atrocities that took place in Spain during the War of Independence (1814-18). Mondrian aspired to create a form of pure abstract art based on the grid and a controlled use of art elements, including primary colours. Bennett as a cultural outsider of both his Aboriginal and AngloCeltic heritage does not assume a simplistic interpretation of identity. Bennetts portrait of himself as a four- year old boy dressed as a cowboy as the I is juxtaposed with images of Aborigines as the AM. 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. The artist Gordon Bennett led a reclusive life. January 26, 1988: Spectator craft surround tall ship The Bounty on Sydney Harbour as it heads towards Farm Cove while a formation of air force jets are in a fly-past overhead, part of the First Fleet re-enactment for Australias Bicentennial, A strategy of intervention and disturbance, Layering and re-defining Creating new language, Re-mixing and exchanging A global perspective, Outsider and Altered body print (Shadow figure howling at the moon), Installation of Triptych: Requiem, Of grandeur, Empire, 1989, in exhibition Gordon Bennett (2007), Visual images, forms and elements as signifiers, Art practice a multidisciplinary approach, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, International Audience Engagement Network (IAE), Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe in Ian McLean & Gordon Bennett, The Art of Gordon Bennett, Craftsman House, 1996, p. 20, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 15, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 21, These experiences are clearly reflected in the Home sweet home series 1993-4, Gordon Bennett, The manifest toe, p. 27, Kelly Gellatly, Conversation: Bill Wright talks to Gordon Bennett with contributions by Bill Wright, Justin Clemens and Jane Devery, Gordon Bennett (exh. They communicated important Christian stories to the congregation. Neither had I thought to question the representation of Aborigines as the quintessential primitive Other against which the civilized collective Self of my peers was measured. He described this knowledge as a psychic rupturing. This event was re-enacted in many pageants and dramatisations during Australias Bicentenary in 1988, as a way of celebrating 200 years of Australian history. Gordon Bennett 1. Bennett lodges this image in layers of dots and slashes of red and yellow paint that refer to other artists and images. The titles of Bennetts artworks reflect the artists awareness of the power of words/language to suggest meaning. Gordon Bennett, Possession Island, 1991, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas in two parts. Gordon Bennett 1. Identity is fixed and self is understood in the context of words such as Abo, Boong, Coon and Darkie . They powerfully describe pain and violence. Discuss with reference to a range of artworks by Bennett. Purchased with funds from the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust, Museum of Sydney Appeal, 2007. Discuss in relation to selected artworks by Bennett that you believe reveal questions and complexities, rather than answers and simplicities. all the education and socialization upon which my identity and self worth as a person, indeed my sense of Australianness, and that of my peers, had as its foundation the narratives of colonialism. What typically Australian qualities are associated with these characters? With eyes closed, these heads appear as blind, mute and lifeless witnesses to the surrounding conflict and struggle. marking the first car ever to touch the island's soil. Fri. 10-9, Sat. Brainstorm ideas and meanings associated with these binary opposites and create a mindmap to show how they have influenced your perception and understanding of the world. At the heart of the artwork of Gordon Bennett is a journey to find that self amidst the cultural and historical inequities created by European settlement in Australia. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Art Elements, Line, Colour and more. He probed ideas about identity, fuelled partly by his own . Gordon Bennett Possession Island (Abstraction), 1991 Oil and acrylic on canvas 71 7/10 71 7/10 in | 182 182 cm Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) The Rocks Get notifications for similar works Create Alert Want to sell a work by this artist? He can be anything the viewer wants him to be: white, black or any shade in between, as was true of Australian citizens in general in our multicultural country.