Gordon Bennett

Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

20 December 2008–22 March 2009

A National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, touring exhibition, Gordon Bennett surveys more than 80 works from the artist’s career. From his early expressionist paintings to his recently abstract works, the exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, installations and video performances. Holding his first solo exhibition in 1989, Bennett’s 20-year professional career has been driven by an ongoing fascination with and problematising of Australian cultural and personal identity, links and distinctions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, and ideas of place and nationhood. Also including the works of John Citizen — Bennett’s artistic alter-ego, whose whims include the replication of living room interiors as they appear in magazines — the Art Gallery of Western Australia is the final stop in this NGV touring exhibition.

Gordon Bennett, Im wald (Divided Unity), 1995, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 220 x 312cm. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Sam Charlton.

Gordon Bennett, Requiem, Of Grandeur, Empire (triptych), 1989, oil and photograph on canvas, 120 x 120cm; 200 x 150cm; 120 x 120cm. Courtesy the artist and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.