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Gordon Bennett / Australia 1955–2014 / If Banjo Paterson was black 1995 / Synthetic polymer paint, composition board and glass mirrors on plywood and canvas / Dimensions: painting: 150 x 150cm; wall-piece: 123 x 71 x 100cm; mirror lined crate and lid: 67.5 x 67.5 x 67.5cm / Purchased 1995. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The Estate of Gordon Bennett administered by John Citizen Arts Pty Ltd
Gordon BennettIf Banjo Paterson was black 1995
Not Currently on Display
This work is an example of the way Gordon Bennett uses art and culture metaphors for Australian race relations. The banjo motif is repeated in the work: as the name of the white Australian poet, Banjo Paterson; as the instrument played by a racially stereotyped black entertainer; and as a reference to the subject matter of early twentieth-century Cubist sculptures on which Bennett based one of the work’s components.
Gordon Bennett was born in 1955 in the central Queensland town of Monto. Bennett ‘discovered’ his Aboriginality at the age of eleven. The explicit imagery in his paintings concentrates on his Indigenous heritage, the Eurocentric schooling he experienced, the subjectivity of history, patriarchal knowledge systems and racism.
Bennett attended the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane and completed a Fine Arts Degree in 1988. He had already begun exhibiting his large, semi-autobiographical paintings the previous year in group exhibitions at THAT Contemporary Art Space in Brisbane and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
From the time he graduated from art college, Bennett’s work displayed a high level of maturity and a clear sense of direction, but it also flagged his intention to resist certain expectations or categorisations of him as a particular ‘kind’ of artist. He remained uncomfortable with terms such as ‘urban’ or Aboriginal artist, for example, throughout his career, as he consistently drew on imagery and references from Indigenous and Western approaches to art, rather than a preference for one over the other.
Discussion Questions
Discuss what imagery comes to mind when you explore a selection of Banjo Paterson’s poems. Compare Paterson’s poetic imagery with the symbols in Bennett’s If Banjo Paterson was black 1995.
Classroom Activities
How is the banjo motif relevant for exploring race relations in Australia? Look for evidence in Paterson’s poems.