The Aboriginalist

The Aboriginalist by Gordon Bennett

The artwork the ’The Aboriginalist’ by Gordon Bennett is artwork created with synthetic polymer paints on canvas and wood as it’s medium. A then, young artist named Gordon Bennett who uses his life experiences, particularly those surrounding his identity, as inspiration for his artwork, created the painting in 1994. The artwork belongs to the postmodern movement. This is apparent due to the social comment of racism.

My first impression of the artwork made me feel shocked at the scandalous statements of racism. I believe that the artwork is a narrative based on racism. The artwork is based around the indigenous man and the box he is holding. The Box says ‘Australia’s white hope household soap’ below that phrase is an image of a indigenous woman being hit with a wooden spoon with the words ‘Knocks Dirt On The Head’ suggesting the women is ‘Dirt’. Because the box says ‘Australia white hope’ we know that not just the women is being called dirt, but the whole indigenous race. Once again the once white moon is covered in typically indigenous style hand paintings on the moon, representing the indigenous making things, or the moon ‘Dirty’.

The man is brought forward and made to be the focal point. So when you first look at the artwork, he is the first thing you see. He is also a lighter shade bringing him forward as one of the closest things to the front in the image, once again making him a focal point. The separate box outside of the image in the artwork is closest to the front of the painting, so the viewer is drawn to reading the details on the box as they are important elements of the artwork. Negative space is in the puddles were he walked through the bed of water. Many different shades and tones of orange and brown are in the artwork creating balance. There are also many overlapping shapes.

I believe that that Shepard Fairey inspired Gordon Bennett as ‘The Aboriginalist’ replicates screen-printing; also Fairey creates artwork about social issues, much like Bennett. The artwork conveys messages of political issues, race, and gender. Political issues regarding the White Australia policy, which in ties with the social issue of racism. Gordon Bennett’s intentions for the artwork, I believe, were to make the white people feel guilty of what they did to the indigenous people. I think this because behind the man you can see a sinking boat and tread through the water to the land imaging that he was in the boat and trekked through the water to get out and that he made an effort to save the box of soap, made by the white people that are meant to ‘clean’ his race. The artwork appropriately reflects the culture of Australia in the early 1900’s, although there are still minor racism issues today.

Unusually the artwork seems to be a painting inside of a painting, this is a uncomment technique. Gordon Bennett uses his past artworks such as ‘Little Dead Boy’. Instead of focusing on the Little Dead Boy being forgotten in a world full of multi million dollar companies and money hungry attics of the world he focuses on racial issues. The artwork is extremely shocking to the audience. People in this generation do not expect to see racial slander to that extent these days, causing the artwork to be very confronting. Power of the white man is bring challenged, seeing if they can turn the Indigenous into the ‘white people’ that they want them to be.