Indigenous Australian Artist Gordon Bennett

Indigenous Australian artist Gordon Bennett re-contextualises the work of Colin McCahon by borrowing and transforming key visual features. Bennett’s work challenges the viewer and gives them an alternative perspective of the culture and identity of Indigenous Australians. The quote by The National Gallery of Victoria states, “Often describing his own practice of borrowing images as ‘quoting’, Bennett re-contextualises existing images to challenge the viewer to question and see alternative perspectives.” This quote is clear through analyzing the visual features as well as the meaning behind the work of Gordon Bennett’s appropriated artwork ‘Self-portrait (but I always wanted to be one of the good guys)’ (1990) and comparing it to Colin McCahon’s

work ‘Victory over Death II’ (1970).

New Zealand born artist, Colin McCahon, had an early passion and desire to become an artist. McCahon was born in Timaru, New Zealand on August 1st, 1919. Colin McCahon’s work covered many themes, styles and subjects with some of his most controversial pieces relating to religion. McCahon’s piece, ‘Victory over Death II’ (1970) was made on unstretched 2075 x 5977 mm canvas using synthetic polymer paint. This work shows McCahon’s ongoing search of faith and to find the meaning of art in his life. This composition questions the viewer’s thought on religion and what the phrases and text mean. In the foreground the focus point of the artwork is the phrase “I AM”, around these large letters are relevant biblical passages with the most relevant one being a passage from the book of Exodus 3:13-14 “Then Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them that the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name, what shall I say?” God answered, “I AM; that is who I am. Tell them that I AM has sent you to them.” The navy, black and white tones used in this painting represent McCahon’s heritage of New Zealand with the smudged chalkboard text represent the uncertainty of his identity and his faith. This work has given McCahon freedom to embrace the text by using large capital letters and small cursive handwriting. This artwork faces the issues that were present at this time that the painting was created including the Cold War and threats to the environment. Gordon Bennett has used the focus point of McCahon’s artwork to express his own feelings of identity.

Gordon Bennett was born in Monto, Queensland on the 10th of August 1955.

Growing up, Bennett was surrounded by confronting images of Indigenous Australians causing harm or acting violent towards people, therefore, this is how Gordon Bennett viewed and was taught to believe that this is what Aboriginals were like. Bennett was not told about his mixed heritage until his teenage years, finding out that he was half Anglo-Celtic and half Aboriginal. Gordon Bennett’s artwork ‘Self-portrait (but I always wanted to be one of the good guys) (1990) questions the stereotypes that white Australians give to the rightful owners of Australia. Bennett’s artwork confronts the racism and discrimination suffered by Indigenous Australians by translating Colin McCahon’s work ‘Victory over Death’ (1970). Bennett uses the phrase “I AM” which is accompanied by the phrase, ‘I am light, I am dark’ this phrase means that Bennett has not taken a “side” to the argument and is proud of his mixed heritage. The use of white and black show the segregation that these stereotypes create, with white being the more dominant colour it shows how many people are “against” the Indigenous Australians. Through the visual features and the context of identity it is shown that Bennett has successfully appropriated the work of

McCahon.

As Pablo Picasso once said “Good artists copy, Great artists steal”, a good artist copies meaning that they are just doing the same thing that the previous artist has done and not making it theirs where as a great artist steals meaning that they are taking the idea of the artwork but making it their own with a different meaning. Gordon Bennett has stolen Colin McCahon’s work and has created a completely different meaning. Through the appropriation of McCahon’s work Bennett has changed the meaning of this painting from faith to themes of racism.