Ben Quilty


Ben Quilty is an Australian artist and social commentator, who has won a series of painting prizes: the 2014 Prudential Eye Award, 2011 Archibald Prize and 2009 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He has been described as one of Australia's most famous living artists.

Early life and education

Quilty grew up in Kenthurst in Sydney's north-west. Quilty lives and works in Robertson, New South Wales. He was educated at Kenthurst Public School and Oakhill College, where he exhibited his HSC artwork in ArtExpress 1991. Subsequently, Quilty was selected as the recipient of the Julian Ashton Summer School Scholarship. After high school, Quilty followed his interest in art and obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Painting from Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1994.
He then studied visual communication, design and women's studies at Western Sydney University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts. He also obtained a Certificate in Aboriginal Culture and History.

Style and subjects

Quilty is known for his distinctive style of oil painting and a range of topics which includes portraits, examination of masculine culture, expression of psychological interiors, and others which show his engagement with a range of social issues, such as the death penalty, asylum seekers, and massacres of Indigenous Australians.

Exhibitions

Quilty's works have been exhibited at the Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery , the 2014 Adelaide Biennial , the Saatchi Gallery , 2014 Melbourne Art Fair , Galerie Allen, Paris , Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong , and , Bendigo Art Gallery included works from the Saatchi exhibition , the Art Gallery of South Australia , and at the National Gallery of Victoria .
From March 2019, a survey exhibition of Quilty's work curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia's Lisa Slade was held first at AGSA in Adelaide, followed by the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The exhibition included works from his time in Afghanistan, Greece, Serbia and Lebanon and celebrated his connection to artist Margaret Olley as well as including new Rorschach-based works documenting the Myall Creek massacre and an hitherto unrecorded massacre in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara in South Australia, titled Irin Irinji. In October 2019, the Art Gallery of New South Wales hosted the exhibition, coinciding with the release of the documentary Quilty – Painting the Shadows, made by Catherine Hunter, on ABC Television on 19 November 2019.

Collections

Examples of Quilty's work are held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, acquired 2005, Fairy Bower Rorschach, acquired 2012, and Self Portrait, the Executioner, the Art Gallery of South Australia , and Self portrait ), the Bendigo Art Gallery, the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, and Skull Rorschach'' ) the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the Parliament of Australia, and the Queensland Art Gallery. In December 2018, a Christmas Tree created by Quilty and artist, Mirra Whale from refugees' discarded lifevests, was displayed in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne.

Awards and prizes

A multiple finalist, Quilty won the Archibald Prize in 2011 for his portrait of Australian artist Margaret Olley. It was his seventh entry to the prize.
In 2009, he won the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Australia's most lucrative portrait prize, for a painting of Australian musician Jimmy Barnes. His painting Dead won the National Artists Self Portrait prize in 2007.
Quilty was awarded a Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship in 2002.

Official war artist

From 11 October until 3 November 2011, Quilty was attached to the Australian Defence Force observing their activities in Kabul, Kandahar and Tarin Kowt. His task was to record and interpret the experiences of Australian service personnel who are deployed as part of Operation Slipper. After his return, Quilty spent six months producing work for the Australian War Memorial's National Collection. Such work is in the tradition of war artists that began in World War I with artists Arthur Streeton, George Lambert and Frederick McCubbin. Quilty's experiences as a war artist and the work he produced as a result of it was explored in the ABC TV's Australian Story program "War Paint" screened on 3 September 2012.
He has been described as one of Australia's most famous living artists.

Honours and awards