Identities come from somewhere, have histories, and like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Gordon Bennett 1
At the heart of all human life is a concept of self. At the heart of the artwork of Gordon Bennett is a journey to find that self amidst the cultural and historical inequities created by European settlement in Australia. Gordon Bennett uses self- portraits to question stereotypes and labelling. While self- portraits usually address issues of personal identity, Bennett uses this form of representation to also look at issues of identity on a national scale. Immersed within a ‘White’ European culture, he was unaware of his Aboriginality until his early teens. He described this knowledge as a ‘psychic rupturing’. 2 All that he had understood about himself and taken for granted as an Australian had ruptured.
… all the education and socialization upon which my identity and self worth as a person, indeed my sense of ‘Australianness’, and that of my peers, had as its foundation the narratives of colonialism. I had never thought to question those narratives and I certainly had never been taught at school to question them… only to believe them. Neither had I thought to question the representation of Aborigines as the quintessential ‘primitive Other’ against which the ‘civilized’ collective ‘Self’ of my peers was measured. Gordon Bennett 3
Gordon Bennett
born Australia 1955
Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) 1990
oil on canvas
150.0 x 260.0 cm
Private collection, Brisbane
© Courtesy of the artist
Photography: Phillip Andrews
Colin McCahon
New Zealander 1919–1987
Victory over death 2 1970
synthetic polymer paint on unstretched canvas
207.5 x 597.7 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of the New Zealand Government 1978
© Colin McCahon Research & Publication Trust
Since his days as a student, Gordon Bennett has experimented widely within the realms of traditional self-portraiture by incorporating his own face within his work… he has always maintained a healthy scepticism of simple investigations of the self that remain divorced from the broader conditioning forces of history and culture. Thus within the examples of self- portraiture that thread through Bennett’s oeuvre, there emerges a more subtle and abstracted engagement with this genre; and one from which the artist’s likeness is entirely absent. Kelly Gellatly4
Gordon Bennett’s art challenges us to question the stereotypes and racist labelling of Aboriginal Australians found in some history books written for and by Europeans. Bennett’s art is not always easy to look at. It confronts the bigotry and discrimination suffered by Aborigines, using a rich visual language based in both Aboriginal and Western traditions.
Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys), 1990 questions how stereotypes create a sense of identity. Bennett investigates the way stereotypes are constructed by exploring words and images in opposites. The powerful image/word ‘I AM’, while central, is accompanied by statements of opposite, ‘I am light – I am dark’. Bennett’s portrait of himself as a four- year old boy dressed as a cowboy as the ‘I’ is juxtaposed with images of Aborigines as the ‘AM’. Clear visual divisions are created with distinct black areas as well as large white areas. The title of the work itself is unsettling. It exposes the pain these stereotypes create. Bennett attempts to destroy the stereotypes to question notions of identity. His use of 'I AM' emphasises this. It acts as a question with many possibilities and answers. European history has stipulated that being Australian has required anyone that does not fit into such a ‘Eurocentric’ category is different, other and therefore unworthy.
They had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as ‘Other’. Gordon Bennett 5
This artwork is constructed of obvious layers: The layers of dots, reminiscent of Aboriginal Western Desert dot painting, with lines of perspective – a Western tradition. Layers of images superimposed with words. ‘I AM’ is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (1919–1987) . It is also a direct reference to biblical stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. This rich interplay of words and images raises many questions. The simplicity of ‘I AM’ suggests a universality of thought. It is open to self revelation, self redemption and a myriad of rich images of self that can be built upon. McCahon uses ‘I AM’ to question notions of faith. Bennett uses it to question notions of self. ‘I am that I am’, Exodus 3:14 is God naming self. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels?
I decided that I was in a very interesting position: my mind and body had been effectively colonized by Western culture, and yet my Aboriginality, which had been historically, socially and personally repressed, was still part of me … I decided that I would attempt to create a space by adopting a strategy of intervention and disturbance in the field of representation through my art. Gordon Bennett 6
Bennett determines in Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) that labels and stereotypes have no relevance to a healthy construction of identity.
Gordon Bennett
born Australia 1955
Self portrait (Ancestor figures) 1992
chest of drawers, watercolour, photocopies, lead, rocks, masking tape
(variable) (installation)
Collection of the artist, Brisbane
© Courtesy of the artist
Photography: Phillip Andrews
My approach is very personal. You might even say that every work to date has been a self- portrait, in that what inspires each work is my own day- to- day experience of living in Australia. Gordon Bennett 7
Bennett as a ‘cultural outsider’ of both his Aboriginal and Anglo–Celtic heritage does not assume a simplistic interpretation of identity. His art attempts to depict the complexity of both cultural perspectives. Self portrait (Ancestor figures), 1992 deals with broader issues of cultural identity as well as personal identity. The installation is filled with images of his family and Constructivist-style drawings made by the artist. Black angels replace traditional white cherubs. As a self- portrait, the artist seems to be present everywhere within the installation but is in fact nowhere. The dresser draw labelled ‘self’ is closed while the drawers for ‘history’ and ‘culture’ are ajar. Bennett indicates the need to be reconciled within the context of culture and history to develop a full sense of identity. An understanding of self in the context of family is not enough.
The mirror, a recurring symbol within his work, is not a two- dimensional illusion but a literal construct. The viewer does not confront the artist, but self. Bennett uses this symbol because:
In the mirror everything is possible because nothing is there. Ian McLean 8
What emerges for all who take part in this piece is in fact an examination of the self. The ‘I am’ from Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) is replaced with ‘We all are’.
The inclusion of the grid as the foundation of the installation appears to confirm this. The grid and perspective lines are another recurring symbol in Bennett’s work. In European tradition these are seen as a means of mapping and defining space. It alludes to ownership and territory. It recalls the way stereotypes, labels, identities and systems of thought are fixed. On each corner of the grid are the letters A B C D . While these may indicate the way maps are constructed to find different locations, they also represent the first letter of racial slurs. Identity is fixed and self is understood in the context of words such as Abo, Boong, Coon and Darkie . The ‘Other’ is clearly marked out as not only different but by necessity inferior.
These contrasting and complex meanings and ideas are not accidental. Bennett purposefully constructs these layers to blur fixed ideas and raise questions about the way identity is constructed. He uses his self as the vehicle to do so.
Gordon Bennett
born Australia 1955
Self portrait: Interior/Exterior 1992
synthetic polymer paint on canvas on pine frames, leather stock whip, paper tags
(1–2) 187.0 x 60.0 x 25.0 cm (each) (1–3) (variable) (installation)
Collection of the artist, Brisbane
© Courtesy of the artist
Photography: Phillip Andrews
You have to understand my position of having no designs or images or stories on which to draw to assert my Aboriginality. In just three generations, that heritage has been lost to me. Gordon Bennett 9
Blood is a potent symbol and has historically been a measure of Aboriginality. In the past ‘Quadroon’, was a socially acceptable term used to label Indigenous people as a way of establishing genetic heredity. The ‘purer’ the bloodlines, the more Aboriginal you were. Mixing of pure ‘blood’ with European ‘blood’ was feared by Europeans, ‘authenticity’ was at risk and identity diluted. As an Australian of both Aboriginal and Anglo Celtic descent, Bennett felt he had no access to his indigenous heritage. He states:
The traditionalist studies of Anthropology and Ethnography have thus tended to reinforce popular romantic beliefs of an ‘authentic’ Aboriginality associated with the ‘Dreaming’ and images of ‘primitive’ desert people, thereby supporting the popular judgment that only remote ‘full–bloods’ are real Aborigines. Gordon Bennett 10
Gordon Bennett explores these ideas in Self portrait: Interior/ Exterior , 1992. Once again, the arena of self- portraiture becomes a vehicle to take over and challenge stereotypes. Here he exposes the truth of colonial occupation – it was a ‘bloody’ conquest. Bennett depicts self as a black empty vessel, coffin- like with lash markings almost disguised by a thick layer of black paint. Literally opening up this black skin of paint are the words ‘cut me’. They act as deep welts created when tissue scars. Gouged into the skin like a tattoo, these markings will never heal or fade away. They powerfully describe pain and violence. Bennett only uses two colours, symbolically, red and black.
There is no physical body. The coffin- like box acts as the body, both inside and outside are scarred with ‘Pollock’ inspired lashes of paint. These scars are not just physical they are also emotional. This imagery is reinforced by the whip neatly hanging on the wall beside the ‘body’. Ultimately, this piece, one of a series of ‘welt’ paintings, explores identity through pain, exploitation and suffering. Bennett does not wish to romanticise or sanitise this ‘bloody’ history. The viewer is challenged to face it. The blood splashed and flowing under the layer of black skin does not discern the colour of the skin it contains, only the potency of life. Bennett challenges the viewer with contrasting identities. The oppressors, those who use the whip, and the oppressed, those enslaved by the whip. These opposites are not absolute. Bennett is more interested in exploring what lies between .
My work is often seen as about exploring my identity in order to secure it, like I’m searching for it, like I’ve lost it somewhere, which is the total opposite to what I’m doing. Sure, I’m exploring identity, but I’m trying to make it obvious about how open it is; how it’s a process of the negotiation of these different sites of memory, human relations. It is all those other things, and it shouldn’t be closed off. It shouldn’t be a thing that constricts nor should it be an imposed thing, from outside oneself, like a prison. Gordon Bennett 11
Bennett’s art practice attempts to remove the obstacles that interfere with a positive development of self.