Ben Quilty (born 1973) is an Australian artist and social commentator, who has won a series of painting prizes: the 2014 Prudential Eye Award, 2011 Archibald Prize, and 2009 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He has been described as one of Australia's most famous living artists.
After high school, Quilty followed his interest in art and obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Painting from Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1994. He earned a Certificate in Aboriginal Culture and History in 1996, and went on to study visual communication, design and women's studies at Western Sydney University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 2001.[6]
He has been described as one of Australia's most famous living artists.[7]
Official war artist
From 11 October until 3 November 2011, Quilty was attached to the Australian Defence Force observing their activities in Kabul, Kandahar and Tarin Kowt. His task was to record and interpret the experiences of Australian service personnel who are deployed as part of Operation Slipper. After his return, Quilty spent six months producing work for the Australian War Memorial's National Collection. Such work is in the tradition of war artists that began in World War I with artists Arthur Streeton and George Lambert.[8][9] Quilty's experiences as a war artist and the work he produced as a result of it was explored in the ABC TV's Australian Story program "War Paint" screened on 3 September 2012.[10]
In 2002 he exhibited a series of paintings featuring his beloved Torana car, signifying the rituals of mateship among his cohort. A few years later, Van Rorschach (2005) represented a white minivan, a more practical vehicle. While, despite the name, this painting did not use the Rorschach technique (aka inkblot technique, used for psychological evaluation), he started using this technique in his later work, to explore the often violent colonial history of Australia.[1]
Quilty was a driving force in the establishment of a new gallery, the first in the Southern Highlands, situated in the grounds of historic Retford Park at Bowral. Called Ngununggula (meaning "belonging" in the local Gundungurra language), the gallery was created out of an old dairy, after Quilty led a major fundraising campaign and A$7.6 million was spent on its restoration and conversion.[12][13] It opened in October 2021,[14] and in mid-2022 featured a major exhibition of the work of brothers Abdul and Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, along with video works by Tracey Moffatt.[12]
Quilty's works have been exhibited at many locations, both solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions
In 2019 Quilty, a major touring survey exhibition, the first in a decade, curated by Lisa Slade of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), was hosted first at AGSA (March 2019),[7] then at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art[19] and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (October 2019[20]). The exhibition included works from his time in Afghanistan, Greece, Serbia and Lebanon, and celebrated his connection to artist Margaret Olley[21] as well as including new Rorschach-based works documenting the Myall Creek massacre and an hitherto unrecorded massacre in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY lands) in South Australia, titled Irin Irinji.[7] The run at the Art Gallery of New South Wales coincided with the release of the documentary Quilty – Painting the Shadows, made by Catherine Hunter, on ABC Television on 19 November 2019. A book, Quilty, was published to accompany the exhibition, which includes essays Slade, Quilty's close friend, author Richard Flanagan, and head curator of International Art at the Art Gallery[22] of NSW, Justin Paton.[20][11]
As well as being held in private collections in Australia and around the world, examples of Quilty's work are held in a number of public collections in Australia,[1] including:
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Golden Soil, Wealth for Toil (2004), acquired 2005, Fairy Bower Rorschach (2012), acquired 2012, and Self Portrait, the Executioner (2015), acquired 2015),[39]
Art Gallery of South Australia (Self portrait (as Cook ...) (2011), and Self portrait (as Cook with sunglasses) (2011)),[40]
^Kit Messham-Muir (9 July 2014). "Ben Quilty at the Saatchi Gallery … things just got interesting". theconversation.com. The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Retrieved 30 November 2017. Ben Quilty is the first Australian artist to hold a solo show at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
^Robert Nelson (14 August 2014). "Melbourne Art Fair: Discovering the Commercial Soul". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 30 November 2017. Almost escaping his own mannerism as a painter, Ben Quilty at Tolarno Galleries has taken an amazing turn into cultural significance, and with a similarly baroque sensibility, through the medium of ceramics.
^"Embodied". Visual Arts Calendar Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 24 August 2016. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
^"Emodied". Pearl Lam Galleries Hong Kong. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
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