HSC VISUAL ARTS

ARTISTS + ARTWORKS covered:

1. Rover Thomas

- All that Big Rain coming from Top Sides (1991)

- Nilah Marudiji; Rovers Country (1996)
2. Emily Kngwarreye

- Big Yam (1996)

- Earths Creation (1994)
3. Lin Onus

- Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute (1993)
- Fruit Bats (1991)
4. Trevor Nickolls

- From Dreamtime to Machinetime (1979)

- Deaths in Custody (1990)
5. John Glover

- The River Nile, Van Diemens Land from Mr Glovers Farm (1837)
6. Frederick McCubbin

- Lost (1886)
- Down on his Luck (1889)
7. Anne Zalhaka

- The Bathers + The Icebergs + The Surfers (1989)

8. Charles Meere

- Australian Beach Pattern (1940)

9. Doris Salcedo

- Atrabillarios (1992-1997)
- Shibboleth (2007)
10. Ben Quilty

- Cullen Before and After (2006)

- Lance Corporal M (2012)
- Cook Rorsarch (2009)
11. Pablo Picasso

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- Ma Jolie (1912)
- Guernica (1937)
12. Bauhaus; Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

- Barcelona Chair (1929)

- International Style: Barcelona Pavillion (1929)
13. Frank Lloyd Wright

- Japanese Exhibition Hall (1893)

- Falling Water (1935-1939)

15. Anthony Lister

- Mural for Art Basel, Miami

Florida (2012)

14. Ai Wei Wei

- Sunflower Seeds (2010)

Case Study One: Aboriginal Art

ROVER THOMAS
World

Europeans colonised large regions of Australia in the nineteenth century to mine gold, dive for
pearls and raise cattle

Conflicts occurred over livestock which polluted freshwater sources which Aboriginal people
relied on

Most local Aboriginal people took to working for the settler ranch owners

People could maintain connections with ancestral lands

Able to conduct ceremonies, continue traditional practices

Retain language

1975- he had a dream visitation by the spirit of an aunt

Christmas Eve 1974- Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin

City was regarded as the centre of European culture, associated with ancestral rainbow
serpents, elders interpreted event as the ancestors warning Aboriginal people to
reinvigorate their cultural practices

1970s- pioneered the East Kimberley School of Ochre- painting on canvas

Public support for the Gurindji culminates in the first return of land to Aboriginal people signed
by Gough W hitlam- pouring red sand into the hand of one of the original strikers

Acclaimed as a cultural leader- 1970s

Artist

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Born 1926, Died April 11 1998

Grew up in the Great Sandy Desert in W estern Australia- Kimberley- Turkey Creek

He established the Est Kimberly School of Ochre Painting in 1970

Didn't begin painting until in his late fifties

Spent 40 years as a stockman

1966- Gurindiji stockmen went on strike against vests stations to fight for equal wages and the
return of traditional homelands

1965- Attempt to introduce equal wages for Aboriginal workers failed because pastoralists
argued that equal wages would ruin the industry

Many pastoralists refused to employ Aboriginals under the changed conditions

Audience

Style has changed dramatically since early days at Papaya, works have progressively become
more abstract

In Rover Thomas bold minimalistic works, many historians and critics have seen Mark Rothko

W e gotta do painting and tell our stories through there. Might as well do it through arts so the
whole world can hear us- Clifford Brooks

Artw ork

Explore the history of the Aboriginal people, contextualises the history of European settlement,
portrays depictions of the cultural and social upheavals caused by colonisation

Themes of displacement and subjugation of the land can also be seen in his works

Use of an aerial perspective and map like layouts of the country

Bold and minimalistic works show a lack of symbolic images

All that Big rain coming from Top Sides (1991); Natural Earth Pigments and gum on
canvas; 180.0x120cm

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Broke the record price for an individual

Indigenous artwork sold at an auction for
$780,000

Depicts his fond nostalgia for a cattle

station (Texas Downs)

Thomas use of natural earth pigments

portrays the tones of the secluded and
cherished environment of the waterfall
helping the audience to gain an insight into
the sacredness of the rural landscape to
the Aboriginal people

Two halves portray the different stages of

the waterfall

Top half= water streams travelling towards

the clips edge> thick and large spaced
lines

Bottom half= falling of the water off the cliff

> numerous thin lines

Construction of lines made out of dotsdraws the eye along pathways of time and
movement, following the forms of the land
in which important events are encoded

Nilah Marudiji (Rovers country)[1996];

Natural earth pigments on canvas;
120 x 120cm

EMILY KNGWARREYE
World

Depicts his relationship with his ancestral

land and features the aerial perspective

Use of black conveys a sense of

emotional intensity and connection

Warm earthy tones invites the audience to

witness and experience the struggles of
the Aboriginal people through an
Indigenous representation

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1788- English colonised Australia

W hite Australia Policy- cultural and social dispassion of Aboriginal people from their land

She experienced segregation, assimilation, self determination and reconciliation

1967- referendum- granted Aboriginal people full citizenship rights, allowing them more
freedom, land rights and educational programs

Central W estern Desert Art Movement- developed in Papaya region in 1970 based on traditions
of sand and body painting for ceremonies

Paintings carried messages of Aboriginal ancestors, belief systems and their interrelationship
to the land

1978- Utopia, batik was introduced to women

1988- Central Australia Aboriginal Media Associations introduced western mediums (acrylic,
canvas)

Sorry Day was during her exhibition and this impacted on how her work was viewed by the
audience

Artist

Australias leading painters of modern times

Born in 1910 in Utopia, didn't start painting until 1988

Over 80 years old when she began to paint with acrylics

Believed that her paintings and traditions that were practiced saved her land from mining

Art practices evolved around dreaming and Aboriginal spirituality

Painted what was important to her

Initial artist training was for preparation and design for womens ceremonies

Use of batik formed the strong strokes to the canvas and the sunrise of her hands

Style changed from lines and lots to the colourist style

Orientation matters not

Audience

Osaka Japan 2008- Japanese audiences said the work was too hard to understand and that
only artists can know what the meaning is

Yayoi Kusama and Paul Klee described her work as taking the line for a walk- where her firm
and fluent brush strokes are strongly seen

Organic strokes resembles Japanese calligraphic characters

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Curator of the National Museum of Osaka sees aspects of impressionism and modernism in
there work

Japanese and W estern audiences comment that it has similarities to Monet

She was prof oundly influenced by the colour in the landscape and worked the lushness of the
land into many of her paintings- Christopher Hodges

Artw ork

Background painted with patterns and dots, camouflaged with ritual items and mythological
content of Aboriginal belief

Bold and simple- aerial view of landscape- graphic systems of Aboriginal symbols- icon of
spirituality

Didn't employ western traditions in their work

Usually large scale, almost abstract

Lines used are linked to traditional body art, plant and animal forms

She would spread her canvases on the ground and paint wile sitting on or next to them

Over the years she began to use larger brushes and eventually began trimming down the hairs
around the edge of the brush, leaving the middle hairs longer

This styling of her brushes produced unique effects in her paintings, like dots with strong
centre and
softer edges
Big Yam
(1996)

Large scaled
2D painting
on synthetic
polymer paint
on black
canvas

Personal
expression of
her land and
represents
the physical
world

Organic and
fluent linesreminiscent of
impressionist
and abstract

paintings

Representation of yam roots and mirror image of cracked earth

Spiritual meaning of land and icons of dreaming hidden under the organic lines

Life- linked network of roots

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Interconnecting lines- ancestral connection

Dark colours- old roots, light colours- young roots

Yam is also part of her name- Kame means yam seeds- shows her relationship to the land

Earths Creation (1994); Synthetic polymer on paint on canvas; 4 panels, each 275.0 x
160cm

Use of dots shows climax

Dots fusing together to form lines suggest dance movements

Her colour palette determined by seasons

Dusty browns during dry season, greens during rain season

Visual intensity of these paintings recalls the work of French colourists Sonia and Robert
Delaunay or even Claude Monet

It embraces the full width of Emilys country, her life, her Dreaming and her art

W hole lot, whole lot everything

Dots- swirling formation, dynamic sense of movement

LIN ONUS
Artist

Born 4 December 1948, Died 23 October 1996

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Scottish Aboriginal artist of W iradjuri decent

His father was a political activist and businessman, leader in the community and begun many
initiatives for Aboriginal people

Father became the president of the Aboriginal Advancement League, died in 1968, a year after
the ref erendum giving Aborigines to vote

Self taught urban artist

Surrounded by classical art and music- absorbed influences from both cultural traditions

Began painting in 1974, his visits to Arnhem Land in 1986, deeply influenced his life and art
and enabled him to forge a unique friendship with Jack Wunuwun (his mentor)

This strengthened his links with his aboriginal heritage but also allowed him to incorporate
rrark a traditional cross hatching design into his work

Discovered his own identity by mixing the indigenous and western styles in his own unique way

Onus became fascinated with spray painting and fibreglass moulding

Became a successful

painter, sculptor and maker of prints

Audience

Onus was acutely aware of the preoccupation of

so called experts with legitimacy and played an
important role in the unfolding public debate over
authenticity in Aboriginal art

Criticised for mixing traditional and urban

iconography inappropriately

It appears that those least concerned about

Onuss appropriation were the Aboriginal
community into which he was introduced who
were anxious to help me find my way. In time
this led to my adoption within the Wunuwun
family

Distinguished academic and writer Christine

Nicholls once described Onuss humor as a
postmodernism without tears- refers to his
unapologetic appropriation of both Western and Aboriginal iconography

He put urban Aboriginal art, as it is popularly known, onto the cultural map in Australia

Artw ork

Created paintings that weren't only Australian but also what it is like to be an Aboriginal
Australian living in a city

Used a range of mediums, methods and styles in his work

He used painting, printmaking, linocuts, comic illustration, murals, poster design and political
sculptures

Often involve symbolism from Aboriginal styles of painting

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Onuss adoption of new materials and technology [e.g. fibreglass, plastic, silicon and time
saving devices(rarrk making stamps and dotting machines)]

His work made no distinction between the political and the beautiful

Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute (1993)

Has been featured on postcards

Dingo- Onuss symbol rides the back of a
stingray, the symbol of fellow artist and
collaborator Michael Eather

Also symbolises his mother and fathers cultures combining in

reconciliation

It also makes reference to the popular

Australian sport- surfing

The wave is borrowed from The Great

Wave of Kanagawa(1832) by Katsushika Hokusai
Fruit Bats (1991)

Shows a combination of two cultures

Shows two societies slowly combining, the main aspect shows the western cultures (hills hoist
clothesline)

The traditional techniques used for the fruit bat droppings and patterns on each bat contrast
the current materials of todays modern materials

Fruit bats can be seen to symbolise the will to repossess the land that rightfully belongs to the
Aboriginal people

TREVOR NICKOLLS
Conceptual Practice

Born in 1949, Died 2012

Aboriginal mother, father of Anglo-Celtic descent

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His drawings and paintings reflect his personal experience as a Nunga man and his relationship
to the land, place and history

Pictorial motifs he employs such as the dreamtime/machine time combines the sheer natural
wonder of the Aboriginal land and Dreamtime
stories

Ideas about effects of nature and nurture, rich

and poor, good and evil

First contact with traditional Aboriginal artists in

late 1970s where he met Dinny Nolanturning point of his career- allowed him to
learn about the approach and techniques of
the desert artists

Late 70s- influenced by postmodernism

He used art as a medium to reconcile his black

and white heritage as well as to voice a farreaching struggle for Indigenous society

Aims to represent the anguish of being caught

between two cultures: the Aboriginal
Dreamtime and the white mans
Machinetime>brought alienation,
violence, aggression, greed

Dreamtime is my Aboriginal roots and philosophy, and the Machinetime is the present age we
live inI use my art to work out the balance between the two

Gave voice to the confusion and complexity around the identity politics of the times. As a
visual artist, he gave voice to the frustration and anger at Indigenous powerlessness and
their invisibility like no artist before hand- Vernon Ah Kee

Material Practice

Paintings reflect his personal experience as a Nunga man and his relationship to the lands
place and history

His paintings show many of the influences that have shaped his life and work

Developed his own style of painting, drawing inspiration from a range of Aboriginal forms and
expression

Earlier works were influenced from his fascination for comic books and the surrealist
techniques evident in the works of Pablo Picasso

He painted detail to a minimum

Colourf ul and busy textures minimised, leaving basic elements

These quieter, meditative works with warm earth tones and traditional patterns often holds
solitary motifs

Symbols in his paintings such as birds (dove- universal symbol of peace)

His paintings are spontaneous, dense and complex with many symbols from everyday lifedollar signs, mining picks, mandalas, antennas, boomerangs, guns etc

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Traditional dot motif- flexible, used to depict various ideas e.g. can represent the skin of the
Earth, molecules exploding or a computer print out

He adopted many traditional customs such as the

use of traditional ochre colours, dot paintings,
cross hatching (rrark), symbolism and
iconography

From Dreamtime to Machinetime (1979); Oil on

Canvas; 161.3 x 117.6

Depicts urban themes

The Dreamtime emerges as the dominant

inspirational force

Clear horizontal division which divides the work

into two different perspectives

Top half of the work is representational of the

Dreamtime- use of ochre colours, x-ray forms

High horizon in background suggests a feeling of

space and freedom

Lower half of the work depicts the negative impact

go W estern culture and the Machinetime

W ork alludes to the overcrowded living conditions

experienced by many Indigenous citizens

Uniformity of the three figures indicates a loss of independence and individuality

Deaths in Custody (1990); Synthetic Polymer paint on canvas; 150.3 x 150.4

Used a range of western materials

Confronting composition of the work- mans grasping hands provokes the audience

Back wall of the cell- Aboriginal flag with a silhouette of a hanged person- the result of western
interference, the aboriginal culture is suffering and facing extinction

Case Study Two: Australian Identity

JOHN GLOVER (1767-1849)

Precursors of Australian style of painting

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Arrived in Van Diemens land in 1831

He was never seen as an artist who

pushed the boundaries

Home at Patterdale Farm- subject of

many of his landscapes

He noticed the differences in the

Australian landscape compared with
England and attempted to capture the
differences

The River Nile, Van Diemens Land

from Mr Glovers Farm(1837); Oil
on Canvas; 76.2 x 114.3cm

Proportion of figures is small compared to trees in the landscape

An idyllic landscape is shown, Aboriginal people shown as noble savages

Glovers work is shown:

the way the trees frame the work

Distant landscape can be seen

Landscape doesn't have an Australian character, pictured in a more visually pleasing and
idealistic European way

Depiction of the Tasmanian light as bright and clear

Aborigines- often shown in peaceful everyday activities, appeared to complement the

idealised Australian landscape

HEIDELBERG SCHOOL

Most important and influential Australian art movements

Describes the style of painting in the Melbourne area by several Australian artists

Such artists include: Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Condor, Frederick McCubbin, Jane
Sutherland and Clara Southern

Led from the desire to have a unique Australian style of painting

Mid nineteenth century- Australian landscape was idealised

Encouraged Australian artists to develop their own styles independently from overseas art

Variety of subject matter- rural work, frontier life, Australian landscape, modern scenes of
Melbourne

Australian and French Impressionism

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French impressionism- concerned with the physical nature and how the light alters colours
throughout the day

Australian impressionism- concerned with the way light could evoke a particular emotion or
mood

Both used plein air painting techniques (painting outside)

FREDERICK MCCUBBIN
Conceptual Practice

Most concerned with depicting realistically the inner beauties of the bush

His realistic approach to nature as he sees it, rather than the academic ideal and the sincerity
of his rural domestic scenes

He was introduced to plein air paintings by Louis Buvelot

He is known for his monumental canvases depicting

episodes from Australias pioneering history- paintings were
consciously and proudly nationalistic

Themes- economic depression and unemployment

1901- McCubbin and his family moved to Mount Macedon.

The surrounding bush provided inspiration for his
experimentation in depicting light and its effects on colour
in nature

Later works of experimental thick oil have been termed his

most brilliant in their sensitivity to colour, handling of paint
and surface texture

Lost (1886); Oil on Canvas; 115.8 x 73.7cm

Combines the theme of anxiety and sadness with an

interest in plein air landscape

Influence of impressionism

The fate of the girl is ambiguous

Instead of the panoramic majestic landscape, McCubbin has concentrated on a small segment
of the bush

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Down on his luck (1889); Oil on Canvas; 114.5
x 152.8cm
- Shows a man in a sombre mood- hand
positions, melachonic expression

The figure gives a strong powerful feeling of

sadness

Sadness of the man contrasts with the bright

Australian bushland

Shows hardship, worry, loneliness

The colour and texture of his clothes blend

him into the landscape

Isolated and sitting on a log giving him a sense of dignity

Twigs and foliage acts as a frame and contrast to the misty glade

ANNE ZALHAKA (1957)

Artist

Areas of practice: printmaking and photography

challenges some of the dominant representations of the beach, taken against a backdrop of
Bondi

examine the cultural stereotypes that show the visual history of Bondi in an ironic and critical
manner

W orks with familiar images of Australia and uses them in a humorous and critical voice

W ork has been collected by many museums in Australia

works comment on contemporary culture using irony and visual traditions of communication

Uses photography with deliberate props, backdrops and settings to break the traditions of truth

Artw ork
The Bathers (1989)

Was part of a greater series of works that explore the representation of Australian beach
culture at Bondi

unlike Charles Meeres idealised painting of the beach, where no one is smiling, my
multicultural group, appear happily content to be sharing on of our most national sites- the
beach- Anne Zalhaka

Rejects the idealistic visions of Australia

Visually references Charles Meeres Australian Beach Pattern

Not in a natural location, but in a studio with an obvious backdrop

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subjects are diverse, individuality does not seem

important
female has become the focus

The icebergs

Australian ideals of tanned males are represented in

the way where the old men proudly display their tan
physiques

The way they are seated reminds the audience of

their age

The Surfers

3 Asian teenagers in wetsuits with boards posing with serious expressions

they challenge the Australian surfer stereotype and highlight our changing culture

World

1930sW W 1 brought Australian together

1929- US stock market crashed

1932- 29% people were unemployed

Don Brandman Cricket record

Phar Lap Race Horse International Success

Late 1930s- W W II

1890s-1950s- W hite Australian policy (only europeans allowed into the country)

Shift from British influence to global influence (esp. America- fashion, tv, music, lifestyle
choices)

Rampant consumerism (ads, buying, selling)

Fitness craze, punk rebellion, videos, cassettes

Questioning of whether Australia has lost its sense of identity

1890s-1980s- 120,000 southern asian refugees came

- Multiculturalism was born- changed national image

1972- abolition of white Australia policy

influence of feminism, women painters, Indigenous artists, rich multicultural legacy, rich
cultural cloth

confronting subject matter, conceptual questions

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range of mediums explored

Audience

she has quoted the Australian Beach Pattern in her photographapproximates the essential
visual menureinforces the mythology of the idea of the beach rather than the beach
itself- Julianna Engberg

I seek to question (and understand) their influence, meaning and value- Anne Zalhaka

CHARLES MEERE
Artist

Born 6 December 1890- 17 October 1961 in London

Migrated to Sydney in 1930s

Art practice encompassed landscape, still life and portraiture, mural design and black and
white illustration

Art Deco style works of 1930s and 1940s

Art Deco is used to describe stylistic changes that occurred to visual mediums in the 30s-40s,
characterised by clean, geometric and elegant lines, colours are flat and figures and
stylised

At the time of painting, he had been in Australia around five years- may not be familiar with
Australian values

His assistant said he hasn't been to the beach

Artw ork
Australian Beach Pattern 1940

painted this from 1938-1940

Other works has Greek and Roman myths and
legends as subjects

interested to illustrate national types

Modernised classical artistic traditions

as a means of imaging national life
during war period

Artwork depicts a tableau of beach

dwellers

depicted as athletic and poses are

monumental suggesting heroic
proportions

contributed to the mouth of the healthy young nation

male and female figures of physical perfection- bronze sun gods of the surf

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celebrates the Australian national pastime of going to the beach

symbol of freedom and classless democracy

portrays beach going as a fashionable event, showcases perfect Australian bodies

Nature of each figure is isolated without interactions like eye contact or touching further- work
is studious

Captured the hopes of the Australian people at the time, the sense of pride and optimism

W hite Australia Policy was in place, figures not merely generic caucasians

Audience

"consciously sought to develop a new and distinct iconography for Australia .

some essential quality has been missed and that quality is warmth. They are figid paintings
created at an emotional temperature close to freezing point. Their reserve is icy, their logic
is impeccable but inhuman James Gleeson

while they are examples of physical perfection, there is no interaction between them, no eye
contact. They typif y the radical ideals if their time. They are bronzed sun gods of the surf
Linda Slutzkin

World same as Zalhaka

Case Study Three: Art Of War

DORIS SALCEDO
Artist

Sculptor

Born in 1958 Colombia

Artworks concerned with tragedies that have occurred to both individuals and collectives or
groups of people

interested in identities that are often invisible- victims of violence,

refugees, immigrants

Columbia- highly segregated between rich Spanish families

and the poor Columbian families

Artw ork
Atrabillarios (1992-1997); Timber, Cow Bladder, Gyproc, Shoes,
Surgical Thread
Conceptual Practice

embody the silenced lives of the individual victims of

violence

Implies violence and fragility through her use of

materials rather than with overt or literal statements
-

the shoes echoes the persistent memory for those whose whereabouts are unknown

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Not only a portrait of disappearance but a portrait of the survivors mental condition of longing
and mourning

She travels extensively in the country side where the worst effects of political violence are
experienced and most of them disappear without a trace

These disappearances are a deliberate strategy to demoralise and terrify the people in order to
ensure their silence

She collects the belongings of the disappeared with the support of their relatives

These are memorials to the lost but also gives us a horrifying reminder: the domestic is
rendered monstrous

Evokes absence and loss by using materials and processes that locate memory in the body

Material Practice

She used cow bladder sewn on with surgical thread

then cut into the plaster wall containing shoes as relics or belongings of lost people- all
donated by the families of those who disappeared

Shoes are particularly personal items as they carry the imprint of our body more than any other
item of clothing

Haunting evocation of their absent owners and recall the grizzly souvenirs of Nazi death camps

The holes in the wall are about eye level

The cow bladder is translucent so the shoes have a slightly ghostly quality to them

Empty presence haunts the living with the uncertainty of death

Shoes are like gravestones, each one marking a single persons life and death

The absence is the absence of knowledge, the continually haunting that keeps grief open and
unable to be packed away
Shibboleth (2007

the issues Doris touches on."

Installation in Tate Modern in London

167 meter long crack

Shibboleth asks questions about the

interaction of sculpture and space,
about architecture and the values it
holds

Tate Director, Sir Nicholas Serota

stated, "There is a crack, there is a
line, and eventually there will be a
scar. It will remain as a memory of
the work and also as a memorial to

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W e should all world from the perspective of the victim, like Jewish people that were killed with
their head down in the Middle Ages. So he wonders, what is the perspective of a person
that is agonising in this position? - She quotes Frankfort School theorist- Theodor Adorno

The history of racism , Salcedo writes, runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is its
untold dark side

Shibboleth takes its title from the Old Testament story where if you couldn't pronounce the
shh were revealed as the enemy and were killed.

The piece is a statement about racism, with the crack representing the gap between white
Europeans and the rest of humanity.

Also represents the boarder which immigrants had to cross, where the crack is a negative
crack

The crack reveals a colonial and imperial historydisregarded, marginalised or simply

obliteratedthe history of racism

every work is political, breaking boundaries

The work is not an attack but a reminder for us to see the world from the perspective of the
victim

The crack is then filled up leaving a scar which leaves a remaining memory

The Jewish were killed with their heads down as an act of shame- suggests with Saucedos
work where you have to look down into the crack- the other world underneath the surface
(see the world upside down, from a different perspective)

BEN QUILTY
Material Practice

Gas masks, spray cans, crane lift, oil paints, calking gun, palette knife

Colour- smashes it around the canvas, being fearless, not making a mistake, fast workersense of adrenaline

14 paintings of his car- symbolic of manhood desire

laughing in the face of death

Unconventional- graffitiing the wall is part of his work, pushes the painting together

his work alludes to his own personal history

wide range of genres- portraiture, still life and landscape

application is lush and colourf ul but his subject matter is dark and confronting

Used a paintbrush and art book while in Afghanistan

Quiltys work explores what it means to be a man in contemporary Australian culture cars,
drugs, drunken holidays in Fiji. Some of his earliest paintings were of Holden Toranas, the
classic Aussie muscle car, smashed-out on large canvases in bold, thick, rich strokes,
applied with a cake-icing knife.

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Being smashed was a popular theme of Quilty s paintings in the mid-nineties,

The artists Rorschach canvases that emerged in 2007 are also risk-taking.

There is the chance that the blotting of the original image might destroy both it and its twin.
Masses of oil paint are used in what Quilty

Quiltys canvases look like sculptural abstracts up close, only coming into focus when we step
back.

Conceptual Practice

Ben Quilty puts his own life experience into his art

Takes photos of his friends at their worst and paints them

one foot in, one foot out

making us look in many other ways

subdues us with his work

used risk taking behaviour in young men in the men at war- riding a passage

never objectified women

interested in weakness

:art is a ref lection of his life- Jimmy Barnes

the place where boys confront death- Jermaine Greer

stopped looking at other people but focused on his car

Inspired by Arthur Streeton

Preoccupation with mortality and death, celebrate or despair

experiences through the soldiers eyes

his paintings show the embarrassment, that Australians didn't want the world to see

W ent to Paris on a scholarship to galleries and museums to soak it all in

Offered position of war artist in Af ghanistan for 1 month

reflecting on their experiences

representing them- giving them a voice

His exhibition- publicise them as soldiers cannot speak for themselves- he is the voice

political and social issue

Explorations of masculinity

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The invincibility of male youth, passion for mates, alcohol, drugs, muscle cars, heavy music
and risk-taking behaviour. He absorbed it, observed it and used his art to probe its logic.It
stimulated a life-long fascination with masculinity what it takes to be a man, how to
define it and how boys become men.

W ild times with a group of friends, nicknamed the Maggots, from the same area of Sydney
inspired much of Quilty s early work.

Photographs of late night drinking sessions and celebrations prompted large scale portraits of
these mates in various stages of getting maggot .

2007 with Self-Portrait Dead (Over the Hills and Far Away), a portrait of himself dead-drunk in
the early hours after a night of drinking . It is a comment, he says, about reckless
masculinity rather than a celebration of drunkenness.

Concerns with masculinity, mortality, creativity, history and identity are filtered through his
immediate and past experiences of friends, family, objects and places as a young
Australian male.

Artworks
Cullen Before and After
(2006)

choice of colour

environment background

facial expression

left painting is closer

application of paint, one is rough, one is clean/calm

symbolic remembrance of life transience

pithy remainders of our mortality

Two-panelled pictures of ten seem stagey or laboured, but this one has a Jekyll and Hyde
aspect - the dark, leering Adam Cullen in the left-hand panel, and the sober, demure model
on the right.
Lance Corporal M (2012)

helpless, unsettling

nudity- frailty, weakness

shame, embarrassment vs masculinity

coming towards viewer

It was not Afghanistan that left an

impression, but the experience of working
with the soldiers who sat for him after
returning from Afghanistan, trying to live
normal lives at home to then watch them
try to struggle to come back and fit in, and
drop, fall, crashing down to the earth with

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is

very crushing and confronting.

Cook Rorschach 2009

features two large heads organised around a central axis of symmetry. Initially the image was
created on unstretched linen, which was stretched after the painting process finished.

Quilty has chosen to base his work on an important eighteenth century portrait of explorer
Captain James Cook

Cooks image is bodiless, the facial expression taking on a sinister grimness.

created the original part of the image in thick swipes of paint onto the right hand side of
unstretched linen

left has been made by folding the linen on the left over the painted image on the right in the
manner of a monotype or butterfly painting

Cook is an iconic figure, a hero to many, who is also partly responsible for the colonisation of
Australia by the British.

The image conveys a sense of power and authority: a sense that Cook, by his dress and
manner, is a member of the ruling class.

Captain Cook symbolised the end of their community ... their Dreamtime ... their culture, and
quite often a very destructive and violent death.

history can distort, blur or even obliterate whole aspects of people and events.

two versions of Cook a clear but brooding version, and a smeared, corrupted version both
mutated

His violent application of paint and palette of reds suggest a sense of brutality.

the large twinned heads disrupt our ideas about the explorer, forcing us to question this
remaking of a familiar historical figure into someone bigger, rawer and more threatening.

The artist takes Dances Cook, removes the body, enlarges the head, and creates a smeared
Rorschach twin. By subverting the original image, the artist queries the authority of history
and the way we view our past.

Audience

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I love my life, my family, friends and work, and I m a very lucky person, he says. But there
are some really bad things happening. It seems to me that in Australia no one talks about
them, and if you do you re branded as a pessimist. It s just ridiculous.

And people buy it. People buy these really ugly heads of me. Seriously, I make myself look as
drunk and off my face as I can and it s collectable.

Quiltys early commercial success and public recognition revolved around subjects taken from
his adolescent/early adult world. Holden Toranas, the muscle car of 1970s Australia,
crashed cars, drunk mates. The art market, primed by 1960s Pop Art, lapped up his lavish
use of oil paint and linen on such low art subjects. In Ben Quilty, the search for an
Australian vernacular had found a new hero.

He has received critical acclaim here and overseas, and is regarded as one of Australia s most
prominent artists.

Quilty likes to confront his audience, and is aware of the theatricality of the audience s
experience when viewing his work. He works subjectively, and draws an emotional
response from his audience.

PABLO PICASSO

Cubism was considered a fundamental principle on which Modern art was established

Gave artists the freedom to explore a range of materials

Traditional materials (painting) replaced by cut paper designs glued onto a canvas (collage)

They rejected traditional form and shape

Broke subject matter into geometric

and shapes

designs

Human body was painted from different

view

points of

Some integrated numbers and words

their artwork; borrowing things from
everyday life (e.g. newspapers, oil

into
cloths)

Ma Jolie (1912); Oil on Canvas; 100 x

64.5cm

Inspired by the vibrant cafes of early 20th century in Paris

Bottom of the canvas he inscribed a treble clef and the words Ma Jolie (my pretty one)- a line
from a popular song and to his lover Marcelle Humbert

Shows a traditional theme- a woman holding a musical instrument reminiscent of the work of
Rembrandt

He also emphasises the handmade nature of the brushstrokes

Guernica (1937); Oil on Canvas; 3.49 x 7.76m

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Bombing on
GuernicaApril 26
1937,
bombed by
German and
Italian
warplanes
during the
Spanish civil
war

Influenced by
the bombing
and his
relationship
with Dora
Maar
(communist)
he created a

series of 14 etchings: The Dream and Lie of Franco

In 1937 for the W orld Fair he painted Guernica as a rage against the war

W oman with dead child> suggest the mass killing of women and children

W oman with the lamp> Suggest she could be searching for a light of hope

The bull> suggests brutality or represents the Spanish people

Patterning in centre of painting> Questions the power of the media vs the power of art

Simplified images, strong use of symbolism

Limited colour palette> sets a sombre mood

Triangular composition and very flat

Mutilated bodies, gaping moths of the hysterical with pain, fear and sorrow

Chaos and despair are shown by sharp, angular shapes

Shows the tragedy of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals- especially innocent
civilians

Became a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, embodiment of peace

Case Study Four: Modernism

MODERNISM (1860-1970)

Encompassed modern thought, practices and style

Industrial Revolution (1700s-1800s)

Manual labour>animal> machine

Used coal and steam power

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Increase in production

Expansion of trade

Allowed modernists to build faster, higher and cheaper

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Focused on art, design, architecture, social and political order, industry and manufacturing

Honest use of materials e.g. Kandinsky- Composition VIII (1923)

Traditional ornamentation and decorations were over the top

Modernist design- simplicity, geometry, open plan interiors, absence of clutter

Suggested that Edouard Manet was the first modernist painter

BAUHAUS; (1919-1933); GERMANY

Founder- Walter Groupius

Unified graphic and object design, architecture, art and craft

Early 20th century:

Fall of Germany in W W I

Mass production became possible

Designers and theorists became the centre of everything

Responded to the modern industrialised world, created designs that combined function and
aesthetics

Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future- together. It will combine
architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form. (Walter Gropius)

Bauhaus School building had simple forms reflecting the modern era of mechanisation, no
detailed decoration

Ludw ig Mies van der Rohe

Less is more philosophy

Contributed to the refinement of the International style

International Style; Barcelona Pavillion (1929)

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German exhibit for the 1929 International

Exposition

Open and simple space

Materials: onyx, marble, glass

Reflecting pool- sense of peacefulness

Shows refinement, simplicity, elegance

Barcelona Chair (1929); Stainless steel bars and leather upholstery

Serenity of line and refinement of proportions

Simple shape derives from the ancient Egyptian stools

The government was to receive the Spanish kingThe chair had to bemonumental. In those
circumstances, you just couldn't use a kitchen chair

Been manuf actured since 1929

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT(1868-1959)

Considered the Father of Modernism or the Father of the Skyscraper

Heavily influenced by Louis Sullivan

Based in Chicago

Time of Industrialisation- Concrete was invented- easier to build with

Chicago- birth place of many new philosophies and construction methods

Louis Sullivan> f orm follows function> if the ornament on a building is considered as a

form of identification then it would become functional

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Holistic design>Believes all individual parts are critical and interconnected factors should be
considered

Organic architecture> Promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world->
designs well integrated into the surroundings

Japanese Exhibition Hall (1893)

Deep overhanging roofs, protection from light and water damage

Dark framework, deep stained wood and panels

Building and natural environment in harmony

Flexibility of Japanese paper screens

Falling Water (1935-1939)

Used a lot of clear glass to allow the

outside environment to flow freely
inside

Falling Waters became the epitome of

his ideology

Series of horizontal terraces

cantilever over the falls

Mountain stream inspired the houses

design

Sound of the falling water is

embedded in the houses character- aesthetic function for the house
-

Unconventional materials- concrete, steel, stone, glass

Pottsville sandstone, quarried on the site- to imitate the natural stone layering, merges the
house with the site, makes it appear as it is growing from the waterfall

Johnson W ax Building

Attained an uplifting, spiritual feeling

Imagination, innovative technology and client confidence recreated nature within a forest

He pushed clients to the edge, with the costs, their patience but also their accessions of
architectural limits and rules

Avant Garde architects soon abandoned the traditional ornamental style to this new functional
style

Case Study Five: Protest Art

PROTEST ART

Protest art- artworks that concern or are produced by activists and social movements

Contemporary and historical works also included

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E.g. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

The Third of May (1814); Oil on Canvas; 2.7 x 3.5m

1808 Spanish invasion lasted until 1814 had a massive impact on Francisco Goya

Represents a bloody encounter between the French army and the people of Madrid

Main figure in white-glowing, hands in a crucified Christ pose

AI WEI WEI

Born Beijing, 1957

W orks in a variety of fields- fine arts, curating, architecture, social criticism

Combines life and art into a politically charged performance

He spent time in jail and wasn't allowed to leave Beijing for a year and wasn't allowed to travel
without permission

Became a symbol of the struggle for human rights in China

Exhibiting art in museums isn't very interesting and Art is connected to our lives. Our lives
are political, so it becomes political- Ai W ei W ei

Themes: questions authenticity, value and their construction and destruction

1995- he smashed porcelain vases to draw attention to the vandalism of the Cultural revolution,
painted commercial logos on ancient pots

His work is a reflection of his deep political interest:

Chinas status as a platform for cheap labour

Censorship laws

Political regime

Representation of Modern China

Resistance of control

He encourages social transformation via his work

Provokes the audience to consider the possibility of action against social conditions

I always seek to protect freedom of expression- Ai Wei W ei

I believe art is for people who have sensitivity and imagination, not just for museum
professionals, dealers and critics. Art history has to be rewritten by people who can give it
new def initions- Ai W ei W ei

Sunflower Seeds (2010); Installation at the Tate Modern Museum; Porcelain

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Made up of millions of small,

individually sculptured and
painted seeds

They are the effort of hundreds of

skilled hands

The 100 million seeds form a

seemingly infinite landscape

Ai Wei W ei has manipulated

traditional methods of crafting

Allows the audience to look

more closely at the Made in
China phenomenon

Chinese people(the sunflowers) were urged to turn their faces to the sun (Chairman Mao)

Sunflower seeds is a beautiful poignant sculpturethe precious nature of the materialeach

piece is a part of the whole, a commentary on the relationship between the individual and
the masses- Juliet Bingham, Curator, Tate Modern

ANTHONY LISTER

Born in Brisbane 1979

Street artist, installation artist, painter

Name Lister for street art, Anthony Lister for fine art

Described as Australias best contemporary artist

He employs a fine art painterly style in his work as well as street art

High and low culture clash in his paintings, drawings and installations

Is often commissioned to paint murals around the world

Influenced by time spend with his grandmother who encouraged Lister to draw

In his street art:

W orks are on public display

Reacts to the urban landscape

Makes work that is temporary

In his gallery work:

Utilises visual language from pop culture e.g. superheroes, villains, TV characters,
ballerinas

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Makes the work beforehand

Uses low art language in a high art gallery context

I am not trying to change the worldI am just reacting to a world that is trying to change me.Lister

His street art often feature huge faces, A face on the street represents freedomI do faces
because emotion
is interesting to
me
Mural for Art
Basel,
Miami
Florida
(2012);
Spray Paint

They move across the war in different poses

Combined line work in the ballerinas tutus

He sees
ballerinas as a
metaphor for art
and a
representation of
culture and
history of fine art

Expressive lines= movement

Edgar Degas; Dancers in Pink (1885);

Oil on Canvas

In contrast to Degas, he presents a much

more grimy yet delicate representation of
the body

I am interested in culture, and societys

judgement systems on cultureBallerinas
are kind of like strippers, only they don't
take their clothes off. Im interested in
breaking art.- Lister

Listers work in Melbourne has been valued at $20,000

His work has been seen as an illegal act

Visibility and location are important> high notoriety

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His work is considered postmodern as he blurs the boundary between fine art and street art

He began appropriating comic muses that act

as classical mythologys pop equivalents

They became proxies allowing him to react to

the world

Fat Batman (2007); mixed media on canvas

Experimented with techniques and ideals

His paintings satirise our culture and expose

the fakeness of modern living

Interested in misguided role models e.g. Ned

Kelly where the boundary between hero and
villain is blurred

The artist has managed to emasculate one of

the greatest pop icons of the 20th century
within the economic and social context of the
Great Financial Crisis and the

institutionalisation of white collar corruption