Untitled Flashcards Set

I have chosen to research Gordon Bennett, a contemporary Aboriginal artist of Bidjara and Anglo-Celtic heritage. Bennett created art that explored issues of racism, identity, and colonisation, especially how Aboriginal people have been misrepresented or ignored in Australian history. He did not want to be seen as a spokesperson for all Aboriginal people, but rather used his work to ask important questions about how identity is shaped by culture, power, and history.

Bennett’s intention was to challenge stereotypes and expose the ongoing impact of colonisation. He used symbols, appropriation, and text to confront Australia’s Eurocentric history and make viewers re-think what they believe. His work is deeply personal, as it reflects his own experience growing up in Queensland and feeling torn between his Aboriginal heritage and white society.

Bennett was influenced by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock, who inspired his bold, layered, expressive style. He also drew on Western art traditions and colonial imagery, which he reworked to highlight the silencing of Indigenous perspectives. His experiences with racism and cultural confusion gave him powerful insight into how art can question social systems and help express a complex, personal truth.

In Possession Island (1991), Gordon Bennett retells a famous scene of Captain Cook claiming Australia. Instead of celebrating this moment like the original artwork, Bennett shows it as a time of violence and loss for Aboriginal people. He uses strong colours like red, black, and white to link to the Aboriginal flag and to show pain and anger. The Aboriginal figures in the painting look ghost-like, showing how they were pushed aside and forgotten in history. By copying and changing the original image, Bennett makes us think about who tells our history and what stories have been left out.

Gordon Bennett’s 1988 painting Outsider powerfully addresses the cultural isolation and trauma experienced by Indigenous Australians during the bicentennial celebrations of white settlement in Australia. The work features a decapitated Indigenous man’s torso placed within a distorted version of Vincent Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles (1888), with blood spurting from his neck blending into a dark, swirling sky inspired by Van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889). By appropriating these iconic Western artworks, Bennett highlights the clash and fragmentation of Indigenous identity under colonial rule. The red handprints on the walls and dot-like patterns in the sky reference Aboriginal traditions, connecting Indigenous heritage with Western art history to reveal the pain and violence of colonization. Outsider critiques the dominant Eurocentric narrative that glorifies Australia’s colonial past, instead exposing the ongoing marginalization and cultural loss Indigenous people face. Through this complex layering of imagery and symbolism, Bennett invites viewers to reconsider Australian history from an Indigenous perspective and reflect on the struggles of identity in a postcolonial society.