Art lovers and novices alike will be thunderstruck by a new exhibition opening at the UQ Art Museum next month.
BEN QUILTY LIVE! is the first survey exhibition of one of Australia’s most outstanding young artists, and opens at St Lucia on May 8.
“The exhibition and accompanying publication will demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of Quilty’s practice over a period of just seven years,” Art Museum director Nick Mitzevich said.
“This exhibition provides a welcome opportunity to assess the work of this precociously talented young artist.”
BEN QUILTY LIVE! brings together over 50 of the artist’s works, ranging from portraits of a beloved LJ Torana, his son Joe and, more recently, himself.
“The high-energy bravura that Ben Quilty brings to his paintings – often using a cake-making trowel rather than a brush to execute his abstract slabs of colour – has helped propel him to be one of the country’s favourite artists in less than a decade,” exhibition curator Lisa Slade said.
“Add to that the keen insight he offers into the heartland of suburban masculinity, and you have an artist who relates to people who have never ventured near Sydney’s art scene.”
Ms Slade said Quilty’s art not only targeted the slightly seedy side of Australian life, but also sought to establish links to Australian history and landscape – be it through images of fast cars or even Captain Cook.
In his technique, Ben Quilty enjoys the danger of flirting with failure, both in his rapid-fire application of paint and in his use of the Rorschach technique to “annihilate” the image.
His Self portrait dead (over the hills and far away) won the inaugural University of Queensland National Artists’ Self Portrait Prize in 2007, and he was recently awarded the $150,000 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and named runner-up in the 2009 Archibald Prize – both with Rorschach portraits of singer Jimmy Barnes.
BEN QUILTY LIVE! includes works from private and public collections, and is open to the public from May 9 through to July 19. A comprehensive publication will also accompany the exhibition.
The UQ Art Museum is open from 10.00am to 4.00pm daily, with parking free on weekends.
Media: Nick Mitzevich (0434 361 383, 07 3365 3046, n.mitzevich@uq.edu.au), Lisa Slade (lislade@bigpond.net.au or LSLADE@ncc.nsw.gov.au) or Cameron Pegg at UQ Communications (07 3365 2049, c.pegg@uq.edu.au)
** High resolution images can be downloaded from here
