Year 10 Art: Ben Quilty
FEATUREIMAGE
Australian War Memorial
- Ben Quilty After Afghanistan : Introduction After spending over three weeks talking to Australian servicemen and women in Afghanistan, Ben Quilty felt an overwhelming need to tell their stories. He went there in October 2011 as an official war artist, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial and attached to the Australian Defence Force. His task was to record and interpret the experiences of Australians deployed as part of Operation Slipper in Kabul, Kandahar, and Tarin Kot in Afghanistan and at Al Minhad Airbase in the United Arab Emirates.
- Ben Quilty After Afghanistan : The Portraits Portraiture for Ben Quilty is about the emotional relationship he develops with his subjects, and the creation of an intimate bond which allows them to place their trust in him to tell their stories. As a result, the portraits of these Australian servicemen and women are imbued with their experience of war. They express the dangers the soldiers encountered in Afghanistan, and the complex emotions they felt on returning home.
- Ben Quilty After Afghanistan : Biography Ben Quilty is an Australian artist producing rich visual images which have earned him a national reputation. Acclaimed as a portraitist, Quilty creates thickly impastoed canvases using vibrant coloursand broad brush strokes that build up layers of paint. He works in a wide range of genres, including portraits and still lifes, but also landscapes that reflect his fascination with Australianness, a passion which has its origins in Arthur Streeton’s edict that Australian artists should look to their own backyards for inspiration.
Reference Resource : Australian War Memorial Ben Quilty Collection
Two Artists Go To War - Shaun Gladwell and Ben quilty
- The Conversation : Two Artists Go to WarBoth Gladwell and Quilty were sent to Afghanistan as Australian Official War Artists (Gladwell in 2009 and Quilty in 2011) to spend time with Australian troops. They were then commissioned by the Australian War Memorial to create a body of works based on their experiences. Their two exhibitions are the result of those commissions.
How Portrait Peeled Away Layers of War
- news.com.au : How Portrait Peeled Away Layers of WarQuilty says the nude portraits he painted while official artist for the War Memorial - including that of Captain Kate Porter - explore the vulnerability of the defence force members who are risking their lives in Afghanistan.
Studio Crasher :Ben Quilty on New Masculinities in Contemporary Art
Art Gallery of NSW
- Margaret Olley When Ben Quilty first asked legendary painter Margaret Olley to sit for him she said no. ‘Her lack of ego is so appealing,’ says Quilty. ‘Margaret didn’t understand why anyone would want to see a portrait of her.’ Quilty met Olley when she was a guest judge for the 2002 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, which he won. ‘She’s been a friend and great supporter of my work ever since,’ he says. Born in Lismore in 1923, Olley was awarded the Order of Australia in 1991 for service as an artist and to the promotion of art. In 1996, she was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia. ‘She’s such an inspiration,’ says Quilty. ‘She was a feminist ahead of her time. She’s vigorously passionate about social and political issues, as well as art, and is enormously compassionate. Margaret has such an infectious attitude to both life and death. Recently, I was amazed at how many new works she had on the go. She said to me, “I’m like an old tree dying and setting forth flowers as fast as it can, while it still can.” I thought that was such a powerful metaphor.’ As for the bright palette: ‘You just need to walk into her home, which is also her studio, to see that you couldn’t use anything but striking colour. It’s full of translucent works-in-progress, beautiful drawings, sculptures and flowers, so I wanted the portrait to reflect that.’ Most of Quilty’s work to date has been about masculinity but he says, ‘Margaret has had such a powerful bearing on my career. She has asked me constantly for years to stop painting ugly skulls and paint something beautiful.’ Quilty has just finished a series of paintings of his wife.
Art Gallery of NSW
- Captain S after AfghanistanIn October 2011, Quilty toured with Australian troops as the official Australian war artist for the Australian War Memorial as part of its Official War Art Scheme. He met Captain S in Tarin Kot, Afghanistan. This painting was made from a live sitting in Quilty’s studio in New South Wales.
- Seeing Politics with an Artists Eye : Ben Quilty and Henry Matisse What do you think of when you think of political art? Didacticism, confrontational imagery, maybe cool textual content, or perhaps hot violent scenes? How about bright colours and decoration, lots of dancing, and paper collage? Not likely. Well, it takes a political artist to recognise the politics of another, as we learnt from Ben Quilty when he spoke recently at the Art Gallery of NSW as part of our Wednesday night talk series on the interlinked subjects of art, protest and change, Quiet riot.
Ben Quilty After Afghanistan - Extended Interview
Australian Story : On the Warpath
University of Queensland : Ben Quilty Liive! Interpretive Guide
- University of Queensland : Ben Quilty Live! Interpretive Guide The exhibition focuses on Ben Quilty’s calibre as both a colourist and painter of large pictures, tracing the stylistic changes in his practice including his recent massive Rorschach paintings, use of heavy impasto, and his abiding interests in mateship, mortality and identity
Bendigo Art Gallery, Education Resource : Rorschach
- Bendigo Art Gallery : Education ResourceBen Quilty is undoubtedly one of Australia’s best-known and highly-regarded contemporary painters. His work is characterised by a gestural painterly style and is widely known for his quick
working method, which deliberately leaves smears, smudges and almost three-dimensional brush marks on the canvas.
Ben Quilty : A Case Study
- LCMAG : Ben Quilty A Case Study ‘My work explores the life that I have led and the subcultures and rituals that best describe the nature of male angst and rebellion. I always think the work I make is fairly autobiographical. I’m not trying hard to build some conceptual framework and, in fact, the more closely I look at my own life the easier it is to make work.