ben quilty
BEN QUILTY
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.
Born in 1973, Quilty grew up in the outer suburbs of north-western Sydney, where his youth typified the self-destructive character of Australian masculinity: drugs, alcohol, and recklessness.
Quilty was a willing participant in this risk-taking and destructive behaviour, but always questioned it. “Every so often when I was drinking and taking drugs to the point of getting violently ill with my mates, I’d start asking them, ‘Why are we doing this?’”
He was flirting with death as a young Australian, which he has often embodied in his artwork with images of skulls, Holden Toranas, and drunken mates.
After high school, Quilty followed his interest in art and obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts. He also undertook a Bachelor of Visual Communication from the University of Western Sydney, which included a unit in women’s studies. “I became very aware that to understand [the] strange role that I was playing as a young man in my society … I had to understand contemporary feminist theory.”
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
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.
Born in 1973, Quilty grew up in the outer suburbs of north-western Sydney, where his youth typified the self-destructive character of Australian masculinity: drugs, alcohol, and recklessness.
Quilty was a willing participant in this risk-taking and destructive behaviour, but always questioned it. “Every so often when I was drinking and taking drugs to the point of getting violently ill with my mates, I’d start asking them, ‘Why are we doing this?’”
He was flirting with death as a young Australian, which he has often embodied in his artwork with images of skulls, Holden Toranas, and drunken mates.
After high school, Quilty followed his interest in art and obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts. He also undertook a Bachelor of Visual Communication from the University of Western Sydney, which included a unit in women’s studies. “I became very aware that to understand [the] strange role that I was playing as a young man in my society … I had to understand contemporary feminist theory.”
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