This resource and some works of art in the exhibition deal with issues relating to asylum seekers, mental health and suicide.

One of the country’s leading contemporary artists, Ben Quilty was born in 1973 and grew up in north-west Sydney. He completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (painting) at Sydney College for the Arts, Aboriginal Culture and History at Monash University and Visual Communication at the University of Western Sydney. Quilty is known for his inventiveness with paint through his thick oil paint portraits and his investigations into Australian identity.

In 2002 he was awarded the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship which took him to Paris on a 3-month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts. Quilty began to paint full time and reflected on the suburban male psyche and rites of passage.

In 2011 Quilty was awarded the Archibald Prize for his portrait of painter Margaret Olley. During the same year he was commissioned as an official war artist with the Australian War Memorial, where he travelled to Afghanistan, spending three weeks in Kabul, Kandahar and Tarin Kowt. Upon his return, he created After Afghanistan a series of twenty-one portraits and abstract landscapes, which challenged the traditional representations of Australian soldiers. He painted them bearing the wounds of war, reminding us with swathes of bruised paint of its pointlessness.

Today Quilty is a visible and vocal critical citizen. He is committed to art’s capacity to make change, and to that end he was invited in 2016 by World Vision to go to Lebanon, Syria and Greece to experience first-hand the exodus of Syrian refugees. Painting with muscularity and meaning is one way that he makes sense of the here and now. In his words, ‘my work is about working out how to live in this world, it’s about compassion and empathy but also anger and resistance’.

photo: Daniel Boud

All children can draw, the harder you work at it the better you are at it
Ben Quilty, NGA, Canberra, 2019

Citizenship, diversity and identity

  • How values, including freedom, respect, inclusion, civility, responsibility, compassion, equality and a ‘fair go’, can promote cohesion within Australian society (ACHCK052)
  • Different perspectives about Australia’s national identity, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, and what it means to be Australian (ACHCK066)
  • How national identity can shape a sense of belonging in Australia’s multicultural society (ACHCK067)
  • How ideas about and experiences of Australian identity are influenced by global connectedness and mobility (ACHCK081)

Analysis, synthesis and interpretation

  • Critically analyse information and ideas from a range of sources in relation to civics and citizenship topics and issues (ACHCS056)
  • Account for different interpretations and points of view (ACHCS085)

Problem-solving and decision-making

  • Appreciate multiple perspectives and use strategies to mediate differences (ACHCS071)
  • Recognise and consider multiple perspectives and ambiguities, and use strategies to negotiate and resolve contentious issues (ACHCS086)

Communication and reflection

  • Reflect on their role as a citizen in Australia’s democracy (ACHCS074)
  • Reflect on their role as a citizen in Australian, regional and global contexts (ACHCS089)

Knowledge and Understanding

  • How people with shared beliefs and values work together to achieve a civic goal (ACHASSK118)

Inquiry and Skills

  • Examine information to identify different points of view and distinguish facts from opinions(ACHASSI056)
  • Examine primary sources and secondary sources to determine their origin and purpose (ACHASSI098)
  • Interact with others with respect to share points of view (ACHASSI080)

Knowledge and Understanding

  • The nature of contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and others, for example, the Macassans and the Europeans, and the effects of these interactions on, for example, people and environments (ACHASSK086)
  • The nature of convict or colonial presence, including the factors that influenced patterns of development, aspects of the daily life of the inhabitants (including Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples) and how the environment changed (ACHASSK107)
  • Experiences of Australian democracy and citizenship, including the status and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, migrants, women and children (ACHASSK135)
  • Stories of groups of people who migrated to Australia since Federation (including from ONE country of the Asia region) and reasons they migrated (ACHASSK136)
  • Australia’s connections with other countries and how these change people and places (ACHASSK141)

Making a nation

  • The extension of settlement, including the effects of contact (intended and unintended) between European settlers in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (ACDSEH020)

Historical Skills

  • Identify and select different kinds of questions about the past to inform historical inquiry (ACHHS166)
  • Evaluate the reliability and usefulness of primary and secondary sources (ACHHS171)
  • Quilty uses a technique called impasto, a thick application of paint, creating ridges and lumps of three-dimensional surface texture. Share a word to describe your favourite Quilty painting. Create a display in your classroom of these descriptive words.
  • Look at one of Quilty’s paintings from different perspectives, close up and far away. How does the painting appear to change?
  • When Quilty went to university he was told that painting was dead, but he pursued painting anyway. Today, we live in a time where everyone has a camera with them at all times. What qualities do Quilty’s paintings have which can’t be captured with a camera?
  • Budgerigars are a small Australian parakeet, known for their bright blue, green and black scalloped markings. In 2004, Quilty painted some of his friends as budgerigars. If you could describe yourself as a bird or an animal, which would it be and why?
  • How has Quilty created the dark or seemingly black areas of his paintings? Look closely, what colours are they? Locate other works of art in the collection where an artist has used pigments other than black to create shadows.

Did you know?

The Impressionists were inspired by the theory of complementary colours and were convinced that no shadow was actually black. Instead, the Impressionists painted shadows in dark shades of violet, in contrast to its complementary sunlight (yellow), resulting in bright and vivid scenes. Check out our resource Is Black a Colour?

Ben Quilty, born Sydney 1973, New Bird, 2017, Southern Highlands, New South Wales, oil on linen, 82.0 x 71.5 x 3.5 cm; Gift of Ben Quilty through the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors 2019. Donated through the Australian Governments Cultural Gifts Program, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy the artist, photo: Mim Stirling.

  • The colour lilac often appears in Quilty’s paintings. What is your favourite colour? Create a self-portrait using various tints and shades of your favourite colour.
  • Although Quilty is best known for his work with paint, he has also created three-dimensional works of art. In 2014, Quilty created a series of porcelain forms portraying misshapen faces, some with distressed expressions. These works are based on Toby Jugs or Character Jugs which often depict a well-known person, either as a full figure or the head and shoulders only. Similarly, in 1889 post-impressionist artist, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) created Jug in the form of a Head, Self-portrait, after the artist had witnessed two traumatic events. Investigate the history of face jugs. Create a character jug using your own face pulling an exaggerated expression.
  • Quilty was influenced by a quote by Australian painter, Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) who encouraged fellow artists to look to their own backyard for inspiration. Quilty did just this, painting Torana cars in his backyard. Create a painting that takes inspiration from objects in your own backyard.
  • Quilty has been known to use cake decorating tools in the application of paint to a surface. Investigate other artists who have used non-traditional tools or methods to create their work. Create a self-portrait using tools only found in a kitchen. Tip: James Dodd and Cameron Robbins.

Installation view: Quilty featuring Straight white male, nose self portrait, Joe Burger and Jug (Nose) by Ben Quilty, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2019; photo: Grant Hancock.

  • What techniques or strategies does Quilty use to lure us towards his paintings?
  • Quilty uses oil paint sometimes mixed with a medium, making the paint thick and luscious. Research other advancements in science and technology that occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Consider how new technologies and materials have transformed the way artists work today.
  • Some of Quilty’s paintings made in 2017 were described by writer Justin Paton to have a ‘tension between attraction and repulsion’. Find a work of art where you think Quilty has created this tension. Is there a painting you are attracted to, but also find repulsive?

Image: Installation view Quilty, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo Grant Hancock

  • As a class brainstorm the role of the artist. Discuss what an activist is. Do some of these descriptions overlap? Consider how the role of artists in Australia has changed. What responsibilities do artists have now that they didn’t have 200 years ago?
The lot

Ben Quilty, born Sydney 1973, The lot, 2006, Southern Highlands, New South Wales, oil on canvas, 150.0 x 160.0 cm; Gift of Ben Quilty through the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy the artist.

Completed in 2006, The Lot is a work which displays Quilty’s signature gestural style in thick oil paint, applied with speed, confidence and first-hand knowledge of his fast-food subject matter. Quilty’s hamburger, a symbol of popular culture and consumerism is loaded with “the lot”. It is messy, juicy and packed with lashings of colour. Scaled-up, sitting centre-square and much larger than life, in this work Quilty is elevating the humble road-side burger to an iconic status. Quilty painted a number of burgers in 2006, including Skull-burger and Joe-burger, as well as his hallmark series of Holden Torana cars which affectionately but critically reflect on white Australian masculinity through the products of hoon culture and mateship.


  • Find a glossary of words used to describe food. Using words from this glossary, write a story or poem that describes Quilty’s paintings.

The Lot is one of several burger paintings created from 2006-2010, exploring the power of pop culture items. They are big and bold, with lurid colours and loose gestural mark-making. The Lot has been described as juicy – how would you describe your favourite food? Create a work of art celebrating your favourite food, which captures the food ‘larger than life’ and the way you describe it.

Artist as Activitst

Ben Quilty, Australia, born 1973, Khodayar Amini, 2017, Southern Highlands, New

South Wales, oil on linen, 130.0 x 110.0 cm; Gift of Paul Walker and Patricia Mason in

memory of Khodayar Amini through the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary

Collectors 2018. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program ,

Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy the artist, photo: Brenton

McGeachie.

Created in 2016 and 2017, this group of 12 paintings of empty orange life-jackets is dedicated to the lost lives of asylum seekers who committed suicide whilst held in detention. Each vest records the name of the individual, hopeful for a better life, who sought refuge in Australia, but, frustrated and hopeless, took their own life before being granted sanctuary. Mohammad Nazari, a 35 year old Hazara man overcome by events in his past and the uncertainty of bridging visa, hanged himself while in Sydney. Khodayar Amini set fire to himself when he believed he would be returned to Afghanistan and certain death. All were traumatised refugees, who were never given refuge. Quilty captures their flight and honours each life in paint, the orange jacket suspended in an empty void rendered aggressively in thick, violent brushstrokes. Fearful eyes or crying mouths appear on several vests, desperate and imploring’.

Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art & Dr. Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Program AGSA


Each life vest is in effect a tombstone, a way of remembering the dead. Together the paintings constitute a memorial, as lugubrious and dour an epitaph as Australia’s refugee policy
Michael Desmond, catalogue essay for The Stain, Tolarno Gallery, 2016

Installation view: Quilty, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2019; photo: Grant Hancock.

there are things we need to stand up for and speak out about. I believe that as an artist, that’s my job
Ben Quilty on ‘When Silence Falls’, 2016

In 2016 Ben Quilty travelled to Europe and the Middle East with writer Richard Flanagan, where they witnessed first-hand the refugee crisis. Quilty and Flanagan met families who had lost family members including children who had attempted the journey across the Aegean Sea. The life jacket, known for its ability to save lives has been used by Quilty in many ways to draw attention to the lives lost of those seeking refuge.

  • Listen to the SoundCloud talk with Richard Flanagan and Ben Quilty.
    • Research works of art by Alex Seton and Ai Weiwei. Both of these artists have incorporated life jackets into their work. How does their use of this symbol compare to Quilty?
    • Read ‘Home’ curated by Ben Quilty with Forward by Richard Flanagan and Notes on Exodus by Richard Flanagan. Describe these texts in one word.
    • Compose a creative piece of writing titled ‘Artist as activist’, which pays tribute to the work of Flanagan and Quilty.
  • Art is often a comment on humanity. When learning about art history, we tend to look back 100 years or more to help us understand what life was like and how we have evolved. Imagine it is 100 years from now. What are some of the overarching messages Flanagan and Quilty are bringing to the fore that future generations can learn?
Evening shadows, Rorschach after Johnstone

The inspiration for Ben Quilty’s monumental Rorschach painting is an Australian scene painted in Europe 140 years ago by H.J. Johnstone, Evening shadows, backwater of the Murray, South Australia. Read simply, the original painting depicts a tranquil scene at the end of the day: a Ngarrindjeri family camping at a scenic river bend along the River Murray prepare for the evening. Another possible reading sees the painting as a nineteenth- century allegorical meditation on the perceived decline and disappearance of Aboriginal people.

Quilty’s eight-panel painting Evening shadows, Rorschach after Johnstone remakes the original painting to comment on Australia’s history. Inspired by Hermann Rorschach’s eponymous ink blots – an early twentieth-century psychological- testing tool – Quilty loads the canvas with impasto oil paint, only to destroy the surface by pressing a second unpainted canvas directly onto the first. Chance intervenes by creating accidents and abstractions that invite us to reflect on our own perceptions, desires and experiences.

In high school, Quilty received a book on Australian landscape painting as an art prize. The book included a reproduction of Evening Shadows, Backwater of the Murray, South Australia, painted in London in 1880 by H.J. Johnstone. Quilty recalls being seduced by the painting’s romanticism yet troubled by the accompanying interpretation of the painting offered in the book. A late-nineteenth-century mash-up, Evening shadows depicts Aboriginal figures in a picturesque river landscape at twilight. By staging the scene at the end of the day, the painting reiterates an all-too-convenient and, at the time, popular allegory – the demise of Indigenous people and their traditional way of life. Evening Shadows, donated in 1881, was the first work of art acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Quilty created Evening shadows, Rorschach after Johnstone (2012) using a method inspired by Hermann Rorschach’s eponymous ink blots, introduced in the early twentieth century as a tool for psychological testing. This technique is also one that was prized by Rorschach’s contemporaries, the Surrealists – a version of their much-loved decalcomania, a technique of chance that invited free association and creative delirium. This way of working represents a perilous strategy as a painting technique – Quilty loads the canvas with impasto oil paint, only to destroy the paint surface by pressing a second unpainted canvas directly onto the first. The process – in essence a reprographic one – demands the meticulous control of paint, colour and composition, but it also invites possibility. Chance intervenes in creating accidents and abstractions that invite the viewer to reflect on their own perceptions, desires and experiences.

Written by Dr. Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs.

With most art if it’s a beautiful thing that tells a dark story, it can’t be more powerful
Ben Quilty on ‘When Silence Falls’, 2016

Ben Quilty, born Sydney 1973, Irin Irinji, 2018, Southern Highlands, New South Wales, oil on linen, twelve panels, 224.0 x 551.0 cm; Gift of the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors, Jane and John Ayers, Lipman Karas and Tracey Whiting 2019., Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy the artist, photo: Mim Stirling.

Large Rorschach paintings recur throughout the exhibition. Using a psychoanalytical tool designed to evaluate and extract the dark and unconscious elements of personality and experience, Quilty’s monumental ink blot paintings explores the dark undercurrent of the Australian psyche, one haunted by violence and displacement.

Devised by Herman Rorschach in the early twentieth century as a method of psychological assessment, ‘Rorschacing’ is also referred to as an ink blot test, where an abstract shape is shown to a patient providing insight into their psychology and anxieties. This technique is also one that was prized by Rorschach’s contemporaries, the Surrealists – a version of their much-loved decalcomania, a technique of chance that invited free association and creative delirium. This way of working represents a perilous strategy as a painting technique – Quilty loads the canvas with impasto oil paint, only to destroy the paint surface by pressing a second unpainted canvas directly onto the first. The process – in essence a reprographic one – demands the meticulous control of paint, colour and composition, but it also invites possibility. Chance intervenes in creating accidents and abstractions that invite the viewer to reflect on their own perceptions, desires and experiences’

- Dr. Lisa Slade, Quilty exhibition room guide, 2019.

Compare the original painting, of Evening Shadows, Backwater of the Murray, South Australia, to Quilty’s appropriation. What is different about these two paintings?

Evening Shadows, backwater of the Murray South Australia by HJ Johnstone was donated to the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1881 and is the Gallery’s first recorded acquisition. Evening Shadows is the said to be the most copied work of art in Australia? In 2011 artist Tom Nicholson asked South Australians to lend them their copies of Evening Shadows for the 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art exhibition.

  • Why do you think this painting has been the most copied work of art in Australia?
  • What questions do you have about the original Evening Shadows?

Locate Fairy Bower Falls on a map. Look at the Colonial Frontier Massacres map collated by the University of Newcastle. What surprises you about this information? Select an event and write a newspaper article about this incident.

As a class, make a list of the public memorials you have visited or are aware of. Who do these memorials commemorate? How many of these sites acknowledge the loss of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people’s lives? Why is it important to publically recognise sites like Fairy Bower Falls and those identified on the Colonial Frontier Massacre map? Write a letter to the Australian Government identifying the changes you think need to be made to recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives lost?

  • Quilty uses his works of art to raise questions about Australia’s history and the stories seldom told. Investigate Australia’s history and find a story that may not be well known. Create a work of art in response to this lesser known aspect to Australia’s history.

  • Look at the works The election (p. 289), or Bipartisan (p. 295), or The truth (p. 291), or A bad year (p. 292) (all painted in 2017) in the Quilty book, 2019. The titles of these paintings tell us that Quilty was thinking about ‘current affairs’. What events do you think he was referring to?
    • What do they suggest about Quilty’s feelings or attitudes towards these events?
    • Create a work of art in response to current affairs in Australia.

Installation view: Quilty featuring The Shower, The Last Supper and The Goldilocks Zone (Banksia Man) by Ben Quilty, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2019; photo: Grant Hancock.

After Afghanistan

After Afghanistan is a series of 21 highly charged portraits and landscapes. These works depict the state of mind of the soldier and the emotional damage caused by war. After his consignment Quilty invited soldiers to his studio in Australia to have their portrait painted while they spoke of their experiences. From these stories Quilty learnt that many soldiers were suffering from PTSD as a result of serving in Afghanistan, a reality of war that has remained largely untouched by commissioned war artists.

Installation view: Quilty featuring Self-portrait after Afghanistan, Transparent might, after Afghanistan and Captain Kate Porter, After Afghanistan by Ben Quilty, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2019; photo: Grant Hancock.

It is hard to empathise with a person if there is no sense of that person’s humanity … I want people in my country to know what is happening
Ben Quilty, A Memorial in Paint, Articulate, Spring 2018
  • Official war artists are commissioned by the Australian War Memorial and play a significant role in Australia’s interpretation of wartime history. Investigate Australian war artists who have been commissioned under this scheme since the First World War to today. How has their role and style changed over time?
  • Considering the digital world in which we live, does the Australian War Memorial need to continue to engage with artists? Divide the class and conduct a debate with the topic ‘The Australian War Memorial needs to continue funding for official war artists’. Use a variety of artists to support your arguments for and against.
  • Discuss the following statement: ‘Artists have the power to portray the chaos, calamity and reality of war’. Use works of art by Quilty and German artist Otto Dix to support your argument.
  • Examine the work of British artists Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. Compare their works to portraits by Quilty. Discuss how all three artists communicate powerful emotions in the creation of psychological portraits.

More works of art by Ben Quilty in the collection

The Gallery’s Learning programs are supported by the Department for Education.

This education resource has been developed and written in collaboration Kylie Neagle, Education Coordinator and Dr. Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs.