HSC Visual Art Notes

HSC VISUAL ARTS Page 1 of 30
ARTISTS + ARTWORKS covered:

1. Rover Thomas
- “All that Big Rain coming from Top Sides” (1991)
- “Nilah Marudiji; Rover’s Country” (1996)
2. Emily Kngwarreye
- “Big Yam” (1996)
- “Earth’s Creation” (1994)
3. Lin Onus
- “Michael and I are just slipping down to the pub for a minute” (1993)
- “Fruit Bats” (1991)
4. Trevor Nickolls
- “From Dreamtime to Machinetime” (1979)
- “Deaths in Custody” (1990)
5. John Glover
- “The River Nile, Van Diemen’s Land from Mr Glover’s Farm” (1837)
6. Frederick McCubbin
- “Lost” (1886)
- “Down on his Luck” (1889)
7. Anne Zalhaka
- “The Bathers + The Icebergs + The Surfers” (1989)
8. Charles Meere
- “Australian Beach Pattern” (1940)
9. Doris Salcedo
- “Atrabillarios” (1992-1997)
- “Shibboleth” (2007)
10. Ben Quilty

- “ Cullen Before and After” (2006)
- “ Lance Corporal M” (2012)
- “Cook Rorsarch” (2009)
11. Pablo Picasso

- “Ma Jolie” (1912)
- “Guernica” (1937)
12. Bauhaus; Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

- “Barcelona Chair” (1929)
- “International Style: Barcelona Pavillion” (1929)
13. Frank Lloyd Wright

- “Japanese Exhibition Hall (1893) 15. Anthony Lister
- “Falling Water” (1935-1939) - “Mural for Art Basel, Miami Florida”
(2012)
14. Ai Wei Wei - “Fat Batman” (2007)
- “Sunflower Seeds” (2010)
Case Study One: Aboriginal Art

ROVER THOMAS
World
- Europeans colonised large regions of Australia in the nineteenth century to mine gold,
dive for pearls and raise cattle
- Conflicts occurred over livestock which polluted freshwater sources which Aboriginal
people relied on
- Most local Aboriginal people took to working for the settler ranch owners
- People could maintain connections with ancestral lands
- Able to conduct ceremonies, continue traditional practices
- Retain language
- 1975- he had a dream visitation by the spirit of an aunt
- Christmas Eve 1974- Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin
- City was regarded as the centre of European culture, associated with ancestral rainbow
serpents, elders interpreted event as the ancestors warning Aboriginal people to
reinvigorate their cultural practices
- 1970s - pioneered the East Kimberley School of Ochre- painting on canvas
- Public support for the Gurindji culminates in the first return of land to Aboriginal people
signed by Gough Whitlam- pouring red sand into the hand of one of the original
strikers
- Acclaimed as a cultural leader- 1970s
Artist
- Born 1926, Died April 11 1998
- Grew up in the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia- Kimberley- Turkey Creek
- He established the Est Kimberly School of Ochre Painting in 1970
- Didn't begin painting until in his late fifties
- Spent 40 years as a stockman

- 1966- Gurindiji stockmen went on strike against vests stations to fight for equal wages
and the return of traditional homelands
- 1965- Attempt to introduce equal wages for Aboriginal workers failed because
pastoralists argued that equal wages would ruin the industry
- Many pastoralists refused to employ Aboriginals under the changed conditions
Audience
- Style has changed dramatically since early days at Papaya, works have progressively
become more abstract
- In Rover Thomas bold minimalistic works, many historians and critics have seen Mark
Rothko
- “W e gotta do painting and tell our stories through there. Might as well do it through arts
s o the whole world can hear us ”- Clifford Brooks
Artwork
- Explore the history of the Aboriginal people, contextualises the history of European
s ettlement, portrays depictions of the cultural and social upheavals caused by
colonisation
- Themes of displacement and subjugation of the land can also be seen in his works
- Use of an aerial perspective and map like layouts of the country
- Bold and minimalist ic works show a lack of symbolic images

All that Big rain coming from Top Sides (1991); Natural Earth Pigments and gum on
canvas; 180.0x120cm
- Broke the record price for an individual

Indigenous artwork sold at an auction for
$780,000
- Depicts his fond nostalgia for a cattle

station (Texas Downs)
- Thomas ’ use of natural earth pigments

portrays the tones of the secluded and
cherished environment of the waterfall
helping the audience to gain an insight into
the sacredness of the rural landscape to the
Aboriginal people
- Two halves portray the different stages

of the waterfall
- Top half= water streams travelling

towards the clips edge—> thick and large
spaced lines
- Bottom half= falling of the water off the

cliff —> numerous thin lines
- Construction of lines made out of dots -

“draws the eye along pathways of time and
movement, following the forms of the land in
which important events are encoded”
Nilah Marudiji (Rover’s country)[1996];

Natural earth pigments on canvas; 120 x
120cm
- Depicts his relationship with his

ancestral land and features the aerial
perspective
- Use of black conveys a sense of

emotional intensity and connection
- Warm earthy tones invites the audience

to witness and experience the struggles of
the Aboriginal people through an Indigenous
representation
EMILY KNGWARREYE
World
- 1788- English colonised Australia
- White Australia Policy- cultural and social dispassion of Aboriginal people from their
land
- She experienced segregation, assimilation, self determination and reconciliation
- 1967- referendum- granted Aboriginal people full citizenship rights, allowing them more
freedom, land rights and educational programs
- Central Western Desert Art Movement - developed in Papaya region in 1970 based on
traditions of sand and body painting for ceremonies
- Paintings carried messages of Aboriginal ancestors, belief systems and their

interrelationship to the land
- 1978- Utopia, batik was introduced to women
- 1988- Central Australia Aboriginal Media Associations introduced western mediums

(acrylic, canvas )
- Sorry Day was during her exhibition and this impacted on how her work was viewed by
the audience
Artist
- Australia’s leading painters of modern times
- Born in 1910 in Utopia, didn't start painting until 1988
- Over 80 years old when she began to paint with acrylics
- Believed that her paintings and traditions that were practiced saved her land from
mining
- Art practices evolved around dreaming and Aboriginal spirituality
- Painted what was important to her
- Initial artist training was for preparation and design for women’s ceremonies
- Use of batik formed the strong strokes to the canvas and the sunrise of her hands
- Style changed from lines and lots to the “colourist style”
- Orientation matters not
Audience
- Osaka Japan 2008- Japanese audiences said the work was too hard to understand and
that only artists can know what the meaning is
- Yayoi Kusama and Paul Klee described her work as “taking the line for a walk”- where
her firm and fluent brush strokes are strongly seen
- Organic strokes resembles Japanese calligraphic characters

- Curator of the National Museum of Osaka sees aspects of impressionism and
modernism in there work
- Japanese and Western audiences comment that it has similarities to Monet
- “She was profoundly influenced by the colour in the landscape and worked the lushness
of the land into many of her paintings ”- Christopher Hodges
Artwork
- Background painted with patterns and dots, camouflaged with ritual items and
mythological content of Aboriginal belief
- Bold and simple- aerial view of landscape- graphic systems of Aboriginal symbols - icon
of spirituality
- Didn't employ western traditions in their work
- Usually large scale, almost abstract
- Lines used are linked to traditional body art, plant and animal forms
- She would spread her canvases on the ground and paint w ile sitting on or next to them
- Over the years she began to use larger brushes and eventually began trimming down
the hairs around the edge of the brush, leaving the middle hairs longer
- This styling of her brushes produced unique effects in her paintings, like dots with
strong centre and softer edges
Big Yam (1996)
- Large
scaled 2D
painting on
synthetic
polymer paint on
black canvas
- Personal
expression of
her land and
represents the
physical world
- Organic
and fluent lines-
reminiscent of
impressionist
and abstract
paintings
- Representation of yam roots and mirror image of cracked earth
- Spiritual meaning of land and icons of dreaming hidden under the organic lines
- Life- linked network of roots
- Interconnecting lines- ancestral connection

- Dark colours- old roots, light colours - young roots
- Yam is also part of her name- Kame means yam seeds- shows her relationship to the
land
Earth’s Creation (1994); Synthetic polymer on paint on canvas; 4 panels, each 275.0 x
160cm
- Use of dots shows climax
- Dots fusing together to form lines suggest dance movements
- Her colour palette determined by seasons
- Dusty browns during dry season, greens during rain season
- Visual intensity of these paintings recalls the work of French colourists Sonia and
Robert Delaunay or even Claude Monet
- It embraces the full width of Emily’s country, her life, her Dreaming and her art
- “W hole lot, whole lot everything ”
- Dots- swirling formation, dynamic sense of movement
LIN ONUS
Artist
- Born 4 December 1948, Died 23 October 1996
- Scottish Aboriginal artist of Wiradjuri decent

- His father was a political activist and businessman, leader in the community and begun
many initiatives for Aboriginal people
- Father became the president of the Aboriginal Advancement League, died in 1968, a
year after the referendum giving Aborigines to vote
- Self taught urban artist
- Surrounded by classical art and music - absorbed influences from both cultural
traditions
- Began painting in 1974, his visits to Arnhem Land in 1986, deeply influenced his life
and art and enabled him to forge a unique friendship with Jack Wunuwun (his
mentor)
- This strengthened his links with his aboriginal heritage but also allowed him to
incorporate “rrark” a traditional cross hatching design into his work
- Discovered his own identity by mixing the

indigenous and western styles in his own unique
way
- Onus became fascinated with spray painting and

fibreglass moulding
- Became a successful painter, sculptor and

maker of prints
Audience
- Onus was acutely aware of the preoccupation of

so called experts with legitimacy and played an
important role in the unfolding public debate over
authenticity in Aboriginal art
- Criticised for mixing traditional and urban

iconography inappropriately
- It appears that those least concerned about

Onus’s appropriation were the Aboriginal
community into which he was introduced who
“were anxious to help m e find m y way. In time this
led to m y adoption within the Wunuwun family”
- Distinguished academic and writer Christine Nicholls once described Onus ’s humor as
“a postmodernism without tears ”- refers to his unapologetic appropriation of both
Western and Aboriginal iconography
- He “put urban Aboriginal art, as it is popularly known, onto the cultural map in
Australia ”
Artwork
- Created paintings that weren't only Australian but also w hat it is like to be an Aboriginal
Australian living in a city
- Used a range of mediums, methods and styles in his work
- He used painting, printmaking, linocuts, comic illustration, murals, poster design and
political sculptures
- Often involve symbolism from Aboriginal styles of painting

- Onus’s adoption of new materials and
technology [e.g. fibreglass, plastic, silicon
and time saving devices(rarrk making
stamps and dotting machines)]
- His work made “no distinction between

the political and the beautiful”
Michael and I are just slipping down to the

pub for a minute (1993)
- Has been featured on postcards
- Dingo- Onus ’s symbol rides the back of

a stingray, the symbol of fellow artist and
collaborator Michael Eather
- Also symbolises his mother and father’s

cultures combining in reconciliation
- It also makes reference to the popular

Australian sport- surfing
- The wave is borrowed from The Great Wave of Kanagawa(1832)by Katsushika Hokusai
Fruit Bats (1991)
- Shows a combination of two cultures
- Shows two societies slowly c ombining, the main aspect shows the western cultures
(hills hoist clothesline)
- The traditional techniques used for the fruit bat droppings and patterns on each bat
contrast the current materials of today’s modern materials
- Fruit bats can be seen to symbolise the will to repossess the land that rightfully belongs
to the Aboriginal people
TREVOR NICKOLLS
Conceptual Practice
- Born in 1949, Died 2012
- Aboriginal mother, father of Anglo-Celtic descent
- His drawings and paintings reflect his personal experience as a Nunga man and his
relationship to the land, place and history
- Pictorial motifs he employs such as the
“dreamtime/machine time” combines the
sheer natural wonder of the Aboriginal land
and Dreamtime stories
- Ideas about effects of nature and nurture, rich

and poor, good and evil
- First contact with traditional Aboriginal artists in

late 1970s where he met Dinny Nolan-
turning point of his career- allowed him to
learn about the approach and techniques of
the desert artists
- Late 70s- influenced by postmodernism
- He used art as a medium to reconcile his

“black” and white” heritage as well as to
voice a far-reaching struggle for Indigenous
society
- Aims to represent the anguish of being caught

between two cultures: the Aboriginal “Dreamtime” and the white man’s
“Machinetime ”—>brought alienation, violence, aggression, greed
- “Dreamtime is m y Aboriginal roots and philosophy, and the Machinetime is the present
age w e live in…I use m y art to work out the balance between the two”
- “Gave voice to the confusion and complexity around the identity politics of the times. As
a visual artist, he gave voice to the frustration and anger at Indigenous
powerlessness and their invisibility like no artist before hand”- Vernon Ah Kee
Material Practice
- Paintings reflect his personal experience as a Nunga man and his relationship to the
land’s place and history
- His paintings show many of the influences that have shaped his life and work
- Developed his own style of painting, drawing inspiration from a range of Aboriginal
forms and expression
- Earlier works were influenced from his fascination for comic books and the surrealist
techniques evident in the works of Pablo Picasso
- He painted detail to a minimum
- Colourful and busy textures minimised, leaving basic elem ents
- These quieter, meditative works with warm earth tones and traditional patterns often
holds solitary motifs
- Symbols in his paintings such as birds (dove- universal symbol of peace)
- His paintings are spontaneous, dense and complex with many symbols from everyday
life- dollar signs, mining picks, mandalas, antennas, boomerangs, guns etc
- Traditional dot motif - flexible, used to depict various ideas e.g. can represent the “skin
of the Earth”, “molecules exploding” or a computer print out
- He adopted many traditional customs such as the use of traditional ochre colours, dot
paintings, cross hatching (rrark), symbolism
and iconography
From Dreamtime to Machinetime (1979); Oil on

Canvas; 161.3 x 117.6
- Depicts urban themes
- The Dreamtime emerges as the dominant

inspirational force
- Clear horizontal division which divides the work

into two different perspectives
- Top half of the work is representational of the

Dreamtime - use of ochre colours, x-ray forms
- High horizon in background suggests a feeling of

space and freedom
- Lower half of the work depicts the negative impact

go Western culture and the Machinetime
- Work alludes to the overcrowded living conditions

experienced by many Indigenous citizens
- Uniformity of the three figures indicates a loss of

independence and individuality
Deaths in Custody (1990); Synthetic Polymer paint

on canvas; 150.3 x 150.4
- Used a range of western materials
- Confronting composition of the work- man’s grasping hands provokes the audience
- Back wall of the cell- Aboriginal flag with a silhouette of a hanged person- the result of
western interference, the aboriginal culture is suffering and facing extinction
Case Study Two: Australian Identity

JOHN GLOVER (1767-1849)
- Precursors of Australian style of painting
- Arrived in Van Diemen’s land in 1831
- He was never seen as an artist who

“pushed the boundaries ”
- Home at Patterdale Farm - subject of

many of his landscapes
- He noticed the differences in the

Australian landscape compared with
England and attempted to capture the
differences
The Riv er Nile, Van Diemen’s Land from Mr Glover’s Farm(1837); Oil on Canvas; 76.2 x
114.3cm
- Proportion of figures is small compared to trees in the landscape
- An idyllic landscape is shown, Aboriginal people shown as noble savages
- Glovers work is shown:
- the way the trees frame the work
- Distant landscape can be seen
- Landscape doesn't have an Australian character, pictured in a more visually

pleasing and idealistic European way
- Depiction of the Tasmanian light as bright and clear
- Aborigines - often shown in peaceful everyday activities, appeared to complement

the idealised Australian landscape
HEIDELBERG SCHOOL
- Most important and influential Australian art movements
- Describes the style of painting in the Melbourne area by several Australian artists
- Such artists include: Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Condor, Frederick
McCubbin, Jane Sutherland and Clara Southern
- Led from the desire to have a unique Australian style of painting
- Mid nineteenth century- Australian landscape was idealised
- Encouraged Australian art ists to develop their own styles independently from overseas
art
- Variety of subject matter- rural work, frontier life, Australian landscape, modern scenes
of Melbourne
Australian and French Impressionism
- French impressionism - concerned with the physical nature and how the light alters
colours throughout the day
- Australian impressionism - concerned with the way light could evoke a particular
emotion or mood
- Both used plein air painting techniques (painting outside)
FREDERICK MCCUBBIN
Conceptual Practice
- Most concerned with depicting realistically the inner beauties of the bush
- His realistic approach to nature as he sees it, rather than the academic ideal and the
sincerity of his rural domestic scenes
- He was introduced to plein air paintings by Louis Buvelot
- He is known for his monumental canvases depicting episodes from Australia’s

pioneering history- paintings were consciously and proudly nationalistic
- Themes - economic depression and unemployment
- 1901- McCubbin and his family moved to Mount

Macedon. The surrounding bush provided inspiration for his
experimentation in depicting light and its effects on colour in
nature
- Later works of experimental thick oil have been termed

his most brilliant in their sensitivity to colour, handling of paint
and surface texture
Lost (1886); Oil on Canvas; 115.8 x 73.7cm
- Combines the theme of anxiety and sadness with an

interest in plein air landscape
- Influence of impressionism
- The fate of the girl is ambiguous
- Instead of the panoramic majestic landscape, McCubbin

has concent rated on a small segment of the bush
Down on his luck (1889); Oil on Canvas; 114.5 x

152.8cm
- Shows a man in a sombre mood- hand

positions, melachonic expression
- The figure gives a strong powerful

feeling of sadness
- Sadness of the man contrasts with the

bright Australian bushland
- Shows hardship, worry, loneliness
- The colour and texture of his clothes

blend him into the landscape
- Isolated and sitting on a log giving him a sense of dignity
- Twigs and foliage acts as a frame and contrast to the misty glade
ANNE ZALHAKA (1957)
Artist
- Areas of practice: printmaking and photography
- challenges some of the dominant representations of the beach, taken against a

backdrop of Bondi
- examine the cultural stereotypes that show the visual history of Bondi in an ironic and
critical manner
- Works with familiar images of Australia and uses them in a humorous and critical voice
- Work has been collected by many museums in Australia
- works comment on contemporary culture using irony and visual traditions of

communication
- Uses photography with deliberate props, backdrops and settings to break the traditions
of truth
Artwork
The Bathers (1989)
- Was part of a greater series of works that explore the representation of Australian
beach culture at Bondi
- “unlike Charle’s Meere’s idealised painting of the beach, where no one is smiling, m y
multicultural group, appear happily content to be sharing on of our most national
sites - the beach”- Anne Zalhaka
- Rejects the idealistic visions of Australia
- Visually references Charle’s Meere’s Australian

Beach Pattern
- Not in a natural location, but in a studio with an

obvious backdrop
- subjects are diverse, individuality does not seem

important
- female has become the focus
The icebergs
- Australian ideals of tanned males are

represented in the way where the old men proudly
display their tan physiques
- The way they are seated reminds the audience

of their age
The Surfers
- 3 Asian teenagers in wetsuits with boards posing with serious expressions
- they challenge the Australian surfer stereotype and highlight our changing culture
World
- 1930sWW1 brought Australian together
- 1929- US stock market crashed
- 1932- 29% people were unemployed
- Don Brandman Cricket record
- Phar Lap Race Horse International Success
- Late 1930s - WWII
- 1890s -1950s - White Australian policy (only europeans allowed into the country)
- Shift from British influence to global influence (esp. America- fashion, tv, music,
lifestyle choices)
- Rampant consumerism (ads, buying, selling)
- Fitness craze, punk rebellion, videos, cassettes
- Questioning of whet her Australia has lost its sense of identity
1890s -1980s - 120,000 southern asian refugees came
- “Multiculturalism ” was born- changed national image
- 1972- abolition of white Australia policy
- influence of feminism, women painters, Indigenous artists, rich m ulticultural legacy, rich
cultural cloth
- confronting subject matter, conceptual questions
- range of mediums explored
Audience
- “she has quoted the Australian Beach Pattern in her photograph …approximates the
essential visual menu…reinforces the mythology of the idea of the beach rather
than the beach itself”- Julianna Engberg
- “I seek to question (and understand) their influence, meaning and value…”- Anne
Zalhaka
CHARLES MEERE
Artist
- Born 6 December 1890- 17 October 1961 in London
- Migrated to Sydney in 1930s
- Art practice encompassed landscape, still life and portraiture, mural design and black
and white illustration
- Art Deco style works of 1930s and 1940s

- Art Deco is used to describe stylistic changes that occurred to visual mediums in the
30s -40s, characterised by clean, geometric and elegant lines, colours are flat and
figures and stylised
- At the time of painting, he had been in Australia around five years - may not be familiar
with Australian values
- His assistant said he hasn't been to the beach
Artwork
Australian Beach Pattern 1940
- painted this from 1938-1940
- Other works has Greek and

Roman myths and legends as subjects
- interested to illustrate “national

types ”
- Modernised classical artistic

traditions as a means of imaging
national life during war period
- Artwork depicts a tableau of

beach dwellers
- depicted as athletic and poses

are monumental suggesting heroic
proportions
- contributed to the mouth of the

healthy young nation
- male and female figures of physical perfection - “bronze

sun gods of the surf ”
- celebrates the Australian national pastime of going to

the beach
- symbol of freedom and classless democracy
- portrays beach going as a fashionable event,

showcases perfect Australian bodies
- Nature of each figure is isolated without interactions

like eye contact or touching further- work is studious
- Captured the hopes of the Australian people at the time,

the sense of pride and optimism
- White Australia Policy was in place, figures not merely

generic caucasians
Audience
- "consciously sought to develop a new and distinct iconography for Australia”.
- “some essential quality has been missed and that quality is warmth. They are figid
paintings created at an emotional temperature close to freezing point. Their reserve
is icy, their logic is impeccable but inhuman” – James Gleeson
- “while they are examples of physical perfection, there is no interaction between them,
no eye contact. They typify the radical ideals if their time. They are ‘bronzed sun
gods of the surf ” – Linda Slutzkin
World same as Zalhaka
Case Study Three: Art Of War

DORIS SALCEDO
Artist
- Sculptor
- Born in 1958 Colombia
- Artworks concerned with tragedies that have occurred to both individuals and
collectives or groups of people
- interested in identities that are often invisible- victims of violence, refugees, immigrants
- Columbia- highly segregated between rich Spanish families and the poor Columbian
families
Artwork
Atrabillarios (1992-1997); Timber, Cow Bladder, Gyproc, Shoes, Surgical Thread
Conceptual Practice
- embody the silenced lives of the indiv idual victims of violence
- Implies violence and fragility through her use of materials rather than with overt or
literal statements
- the shoes echoes the persistent memory for those whose whereabouts are unknown
- Not only a portrait of disappearance but a portrait of the survivors mental condition of
longing and mourning
- She travels extensively in the country side where the worst effects of political violence
are experienced and most of them disappear without a trace
- These disappearances are a deliberate strat egy to demoralise and terrify the people in
order to ensure their silence
- She collects the belongings of the disappeared with the support of their relatives
- These are memorials to the lost but also gives us a horrifying reminder: the domestic is
rendered monstrous
- Evokes absence and loss by using materials and processes that locate memory in the
body
Material Practice
- She used cow bladder sewn on with surgical thread

- then cut into the plaster wall containing shoes as relics or belongings of lost people- all
donated by the families of those who disappeared
- Shoes are particularly personal items as they carry the imprint of our body more than
any other item of clothing
- Haunting evocation of their absent owners and recall the grizzly souvenirs of Nazi
death c amps
- The holes in the wall are about eye level
- The cow bladder is translucent s o the shoes have a slightly ghostly quality to them
- Empty presence haunts the living with the uncertainty of death
- Shoes are like gravestones, each one marking a single person’s life and death
- The absence is the absence of knowledge, the continually haunting that keeps grief
open and unable to be packed away
Shibboleth (2007
- Installation in Tate Modern in

London
- 167 meter long crack
- Shibboleth asks questions about

the interaction of sculpture and space,
about architecture and the values it
holds
- Tate Director, Sir Nicholas

Serota stated, "There is a crack, there is
a line, and eventually there will be a
scar. It will remain as a memory of the
work and also as a memorial to the
issues Doris touches on."
- “W e should all world from the

perspective of the victim, like Jewish people that were killed with their head down
in the Middle Ages. So he wonders, what is the perspective of a person that is
agonising in this position?”- She quotes Frankfort School theorist - Theodor Adorno
- ‘The history of racism ’, Salcedo writes, ‘runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is
its untold dark side’
- “Shibboleth ” takes its title from the Old Testament story where if you couldn't
pronounce the “shh” were revealed as the enemy and were killed.
- The piece is a statement about racism, with the crack representing the gap between
white Europeans and the rest of humanity.
- Also represents the boarder which immigrants had to cross, where the crack is a
negative crack
- The crack reveals a “colonial and imperial history…disregarded, marginalised or simply

obliterated …the history of racism”
- every work is political, breaking boundaries
- The work is not an attack but a reminder for us to see the world from the perspective of
the victim
- The crack is then filled up leaving a scar which leaves a remaining memory
- The Jewish were killed with their heads down as an act of shame- suggests with
Saucedo’s work where you have to look down into the crack- the other world
underneath the surface (see the world upside down, from a different perspective)
BEN QUILTY
Material Practice
- Gas masks, spray cans, crane lift, oil paints, calking gun, palette knife
- Colour- smashes it around the canvas, being fearless, not making a mistake, fast
worker- sense of adrenaline
- 14 paintings of his car- symbolic of manhood desire
- “laughing in the face of death”
- Unconventional- graffitiing the wall is part of his work, pushes the painting together
- his work alludes to his own personal history
- wide range of genres - portraiture, still life and landscape
- application is lush and colourful but his subject matter is dark and confronting
- Used a paintbrush and art book while in Afghanistan
- Quilty’s work explores what it means to be a man in contemporary Australian culture –

cars, drugs, drunken holidays in Fiji. Some of his earliest paintings were of Holden
Toranas, the classic Aussie muscle car, smashed-out on large canvases in bold,
thick, rich strokes, applied with a cake-icing knife.
- Being smashed was a popular theme of Quilty’s paintings in the mid-nineties,
- The artist ’s Rorschach canvases that emerged in 2007 are also risk-taking.
- There is the chance that the blotting of the original image might destroy both it and its
twin. Masses of oil paint are used in what Quilty
- Quilty’s canvases look like sculptural abstracts up close, only coming into focus when
w e step back.
Conceptual Practice
- Ben Quilty puts his own life experience into his art
- Takes photos of his friends at their worst and paints them
- “one foot in, one foot out ”
- “making us look in many other ways ”
- subdues us with his work
- used risk taking behaviour in young men in the men at war- riding a passage
- never objectified women
- interested in weakness
- :art is a reflection of his life”- Jimmy Barnes
- “the place where boys confront death”- Jermaine Greer
- “stopped looking at other people but focused on his car”
- Inspired by Arthur Streeton
- Preoccupation with mortality and death, celebrate or despair
- experiences through the soldier’s eyes
- his paintings show the embarrassment, that Australians didn't want the world to see
- Went to Paris on a scholarship to galleries and museums to soak it all in
- Offered position of war artist in Afghanistan for 1 month
- reflecting on their experiences
- representing them - giving them a voice
- His exhibition - publicise them as soldiers cannot speak for themselves - he is the voice
- political and social issue
Explorations of masculinity
- The invincibility of male youth, passion for mates, alcohol, drugs, muscle cars, heavy
music and risk-taking behaviour. He absorbed it, observed it and used his art to
probe its logic.It stimulated a life-long fascination with masculinity – what it takes
to be a man, how to define it and how boys become men.
- Wild times with a group of friends, nicknamed the ‘Maggots ’, from the same area of
Sydne y inspired much of Quilty’s early work.
- Photographs of late night drinking sessions and celebrations prompted large scale
portraits of these mates in various stages of ‘getting maggot ’.
- 2007 with Self -Portrait Dead (Over the Hills and Far Away), a portrait of himself ‘dead-
drunk in the early hours after a night of drinking’. ‘It is a comment, ’ he says, ‘about
reckless masculinity rather than a celebration of drunkenness.
- Concerns with masculinity, mortality, creativity, history and identity are filtered through
his immediate and past experiences of friends, family, objects and places as a
young Australian male.
Artworks
Cullen Before and After (2006)
- “choice of colour”
- environment background
- facial expression
- left painting is closer
- application of paint, one

is rough, one is clean/calm
- symbolic remembrance of
life transience
- pithy remainders of our mortality
- Two-panelled pictures often seem stagey or laboured, but this one has a Jekyll and
Hyde aspect - the dark, leering Adam Cullen in the left -hand panel, and the sober,
demure model on the right.
Lance Corporal M (2012)
- helpless, unsettling
- nudity- frailty, weakness
- shame, embarrassment vs masculinity
- coming towards viewer
- It was not Afghanistan that left an

impression, but the experience of working
with the soldiers who sat for him after
returning from Afghanistan, trying to live
normal lives at hom e “to then watch them try
to struggle to come back and fit in, and drop,
fall, crashing down to the earth with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder is very crushing
and confronting.”
Cook Rorschach 2009

- features two large heads organised around a central axis of symmetry. Initially the
image was created on unstretched linen, which was stretched after the painting
process finished.
- Quilty has chosen to base his work on an important eighteenth century portrait of
explorer Captain James Cook
- Cook’s image is bodiless, the facial expression taking on a sinister grimness.
- created the original part of the image in thick swipes of paint onto the right hand side
of unstretched linen
- left has been made by folding the linen on the left over the painted image on the right
in the manner of a monotype or ‘butterfly painting’
- Cook is an iconic figure, a hero to many, who is also partly responsible for the
colonisation of Australia by the British.
- The image conveys a sense of power and authority: a sense that Cook, by his dress
and manner, is a member of the ruling class.
- Captain Cook symbolised the end of their community ... their Dreamtime ... their
culture, and quite often a very destructive and violent death.
- history can distort, blur or even obliterate whole aspects of people and events.
- two versions of Cook – a clear but brooding version, and a smeared, corrupted version
– both mutated
- His violent application of paint and palette of reds suggest a sense of brutality.
- the large twinned heads disrupt our ideas about the explorer, forcing us to question
this remaking of a familiar historical figure into someone bigger, rawer and more
threatening.
- The artist takes Dance’s Cook, removes the body, enlarges the head, and creates a
smeared Rorschach twin. By subverting the original image, the artist queries the
authority of history and the way w e view our past.
Audience
- “I love m y life, m y family, friends and work, and I’m a very lucky person, ” he says. “But
there are some really bad things happening. It seems to m e that in Australia no
one talks about them, and if you do you’re branded as a pessimist. It’s just
ridiculous.
- “And people buy it. People buy these really ugly heads of me. Seriously, I make myself
look as drunk and off m y face as I can and it’s collectable. ”
- Quilty’s early commercial success and public recognition revolved around subjects
taken from his adolescent/early adult world. Holden Toranas, the muscle car of
1970s ’ Australia, crashed cars, drunk mates. The art market, primed by 1960s ’ Pop
Art, lapped up his lavish use of oil paint and linen on such ’low art ’ subjects. In
Ben Quilty, the search for an Australian vernacular had found a new hero.
- He has received critical acclaim here and overseas, and is regarded as one of
Australia ’s most prominent artists.
- Quilty likes to confront his audience, and is aware of the theatricality of the audience’s
experience when viewing his work. He works subjectively, and draws an emotional
response from his audience.
PABLO PICASSO
- Cubism was considered a fundamental principle on which Modern art was established
- Gave artists the freedom to explore a range of materials
- Traditional materials (painting) replaced by cut paper designs glued onto a canvas
(collage)
- They rejected traditional form and shape
- Broke subject matter into geometric

designs and shapes
- Human body was painted from different

points of view
- Some integrated numbers and words

into their artwork; borrowing things
from everyday life (e.g. newspapers,
oil cloths)
Ma Jolie (1912); Oil on Canvas; 100 x

64.5cm
- Inspired by the vibrant cafes of early

20th century in Paris
- Bottom of the canvas he inscribed a treble clef and the words “Ma Jolie” (my pretty
one)- a line from a popular song and to his lover Marcelle Humbert
- Shows a traditional theme- a woman holding a musical instrument reminiscent of the

work of Rembrandt
- He also emphasises the handmade nature of the brushstrokes
Guernica (1937); Oil on Canvas; 3.49 x 7.76m
- Bombing
on Guernica-
April 26 1937,
bombed by
German and
Italian
warplanes
during the
Spanish civil
war
- Influenced
by the bombing
and his
relationship
with Dora Maar
(communist) he
created a
series of 14
etchings: The
Dream and Lie
of Franco
- In 1937 for the World Fair he painted Guernica as a rage against the war
- Woman with dead child—> suggest the mass killing of women and children
- Woman with the lamp—> Suggest she could be searching for a light of hope
- The bull—> suggests brutality or represents the Spanish people
- Patterning in centre of painting—> Questions the power of the media vs the power of
art
- Simplified images, strong use of symbolism
- Limited colour palette—> sets a sombre mood
- Triangular composition and very flat
- Mutilated bodies, gaping moths of the hysterical with pain, fear and sorrow
- Chaos and despair are shown by sharp, angular shapes
- Shows the tragedy of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals- especially
innocent civilians
- Became a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, embodiment

of peace
Case Study Four: Modernism

MODERNISM (1860-1970)
- Encompassed modern thought, practices and style
- Industrial Revolution (1700s -1800s)
- Manual labour—>animal —> machine
- Used coal and steam power
- Increase in production
- Expansion of trade
- Allowed modernists to build faster, higher and cheaper
- Focused on art, design, architecture, social and political order, industry and
manufacturing
- Honest use of materials e.g. Kandinsky- Composition VIII (1923)
- Traditional ornamentation and decorations were over the top
- Modernist design- simplicity, geometry, open plan interiors, absence of clutter
- Suggested that Edouard Manet was the first modernist painter
BAUHAUS; (1919-1933); GERMANY
- Founder - Walter Groupius
- Unified graphic and object design, architecture, art and craft
- Early 20th century:

- Fall of Germany in W W I
- Mass production became possible
- Designers and theorists became the centre of everything
- Responded to the modern industrialised world, created designs that combined function
and aesthetics
- “Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future- together. It w ill
combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form. ” (Walter Gropius)
- Bauhaus School building had simple forms reflecting the modern era of mechanisation,
no detailed decoration
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- “Less is more” philosophy
- Contributed to the refinement of the International style
International Style; Barcelona Pavillion (1929)
- German exhibit for the 1929 International

Exposition
- Open and simple space
- Materials: onyx, marble, glass
- Reflecting pool- sense of peacefulness
- Shows refinement, simplicity, elegance
Barcelona Chair (1929); Stainless steel bars and

leather upholstery
- Serenity of line and refinement of proportions
- Simple shape derives from the ancient Egyptian stools

- “The government was to receive the Spanish king…The chair had to be…monumental.
In those circumstances, you just couldn't use a kitchen chair”
- Been manufactured since 1929
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT(1868-1959)
- Considered the “Father of Modernism ” or the “Father of the Skyscraper”
- Heavily influenced by Louis Sulliv an
- Based in Chicago
- Time of Industrialisation - Concrete was invented- easier to build with
- Chicago- birth place of many new philosophies and construction methods
- Louis Sullivan—> “form follows function”—> if the ornament on a building is considered

as a form of identification then it would become functional
- Holistic design—>Believes all individual parts are critical and interconnected factors
should be considered
- Organic architecture —> Promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural
world-> designs well integrated into the surroundings
Japanese Exhibition Hall (1893)
- Deep overhanging roofs, protection from light and water damage
- Dark framework, deep stained wood and panels
- Building and natural environment in harmony
- Flexibility of Japanese paper screens
Falling Water (1935-1939)
- Used a lot of clear glass to allow

the outside environment to flow freely
inside
- Falling Waters became the

epitome of his ideology
- Series of horizontal terraces

cantilever over the falls
- Mountain stream inspired the

house’s design
- Sound of the falling water is

embedded in the house’s character-
aesthetic function for the house
- Unconventional materials - concrete, steel, stone, glass
- Pottsville sandstone, quarried on the site- to imitate the natural stone layering, merges
the house with the site, makes it appear as it is growing from the waterfall
Johnson Wax Building
- Attained an uplifting, spiritual feeling
- Imagination, innovative technology and client confidence recreated nature within a

forest
- He pushed clients to the edge, with the costs, their patience but also their accessions
of architectural limits and rules
- Avant Garde architects soon abandoned the traditional ornamental style to this new
functional style
Case Study Five: Protest Art

PROTEST ART
- Protest art - artworks that concern or are produced by activists and social movements
- Contemporary and historical works also included
E.g. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)
The Third of May (1814); Oil on Canvas; 2.7 x 3.5m
- 1808 Spanish invasion lasted until 1814 had a massive impact on Francisco Goya
- Represents a bloody encounter between the French army and the people of Madrid
- Main figure in white-glowing, hands in a crucified Christ pose
AI WEI WEI
- Born Beijing, 1957
- Works in a variety of fields - fine arts, curating, architecture, social criticism
- Combines life and art into a politically charged performance
- He spent time in jail and wasn't allowed to leave Beijing for a year and wasn't allowed
to travel without permission
- Became a symbol of the struggle for human rights in China
- “Exhibiting art in museums isn't very interesting …” and “Art is connected to our lives.
Our lives are political, so it becomes political”- Ai Wei Wei
- Themes: questions authenticity, value and their construction and destruction
- 1995- he smashed porcelain vases to draw attention to the vandalism of the Cultural
revolution, painted commercial logos on ancient pots
- His work is a reflection of his deep political interest:
- China’s status as a platform for cheap labour
- Censorship laws
- Political regime
- Representation of Modern China
- Resistance of control
- He encourages social transformation via his work
- Provokes the audience to consider the possibility of action against social conditions
- “I always seek to protect freedom of expression”- Ai Wei Wei
- “I believe art is for people who have sensitivity and imagination, not just for museum
professionals, dealers and critics. Art history has to be rewritten by people who can
give it new definitions ”- Ai Wei Wei
Sunflower Seeds (2010);

Installation at the Tate Modern
Museum; Porcelain
- Made up of millions of small,

individually sculptured and painted
seeds
- They are the effort of hundreds

of skilled hands
- The 100 million seeds form a

seemingly infinite landscape
- Ai Wei Wei has manipulated

traditional methods of crafting
- Allows the audience to look more

closely at the “Made in China”
phenomenon
- Chinese people(the sunflowers) were urged to turn their faces to the “sun” (Chairman
Mao)
- “Sunflower seeds is a beautiful poignant sculpture…the precious nature of the

m aterial…each piece is a part of the whole, a commentary on the relationship
between the individual and the masses ”- Juliet Bingham, Curator, Tate Modern
ANTHONY LISTER
- Born in Brisbane 1979
- Street artist, installation artist, painter
- Name Lister for street art, Anthony Lister for fine art
- Described as “Australia’s best contemporary artist”
- He employs a fine art painterly style in his work as well as street art
- High and low culture clash in his paintings, drawings and installations
- Is often commissioned to paint murals around the world
- Influenced by time spend with his grandmother who encouraged Lister to draw
- In his street art:
- Works are on public display
- Reacts to the urban landscape
- Makes work that is temporary
- In his gallery work:
- Utilises visual language from pop culture e.g. superheroes, villains, T V characters,
ballerinas
- Makes the work beforehand
- Uses low art language in a high art gallery context
- “I am not trying to change the world…I am just reacting to a world that is trying to
change me.”- Lister
- His street art often feature huge faces, “A face on the street represents freedom …I do
faces because emotion is interesting to me”
Mural for Art Basel,

Miami Florida
(2012); Spray Paint
- He sees
ballerinas as a
metaphor for art
and a
representation of
culture and history
of fine art
- They move across

the war in different
poses
- Combined line
work in the
ballerinas tutus
- Expressive lines= movement

Edgar Degas; Dancers in Pink (1885); Oil

on Canvas
- In contrast to Degas, he presents a

much more grimy yet delicate
representation of the body
- “I am interested in culture, and society’s

judgement systems on culture…Ballerinas
are kind of like strippers, only they don't
take their clothes off. I’m interested in
breaking art. ”- Lister
- Lister’s work in Melbourne has been valued at $20,000
- His work has been seen as an illegal act
- Visibility and location are important —> high notoriety
- His work is considered postmodern as he blurs the boundary between fine art and
street art
- He began appropriating comic muses that act as classical mythology’s pop equivalents
- They became proxies allowing him to

react to the world
Fat Batman (2007); mixed media on canvas
- Experimented with techniques and ideals
- His paintings satirise our culture and

expose the fakeness of modern living
- Interested in misguided role models e.g.

Ned Kelly where the boundary between hero and
villain is blurred
- “The artist has managed to emasculate

one of the greatest pop icons of the 20th century
within the economic and social context of the
Great Financial Crisis and the institutionalisation
of white collar corruption ”

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HSC VISUAL ARTS Page 1 of 30

ARTISTS + ARTWORKS covered:

10. Ben Quilty

11. Pablo Picasso

12. Bauhaus; Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

13. Frank Lloyd Wright

Case Study One: Aboriginal Art

- People could maintain connections with ancestral lands

- Able to conduct ceremonies, continue traditional practices

- 1975- he had a dream visitation by the spirit of an aunt

- Christmas Eve 1974- Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin

- 1970s - pioneered the East Kimberley School of Ochre- painting on canvas

- Acclaimed as a cultural leader- 1970s

- Born 1926, Died April 11 1998

- He established the Est Kimberly School of Ochre Painting in 1970

- Didn't begin painting until in his late fifties

- Spent 40 years as a stockman

- Many pastoralists refused to employ Aboriginals under the changed conditions

- Use of an aerial perspective and map like layouts of the country

- Bold and minimalist ic works show a lack of symbolic images

- Broke the record price for an individual

- Depicts his fond nostalgia for a cattle

- Thomas ’ use of natural earth pigments

- Two halves portray the different stages

- Top half= water streams travelling

- Bottom half= falling of the water off the

- Construction of lines made out of dots -

Nilah Marudiji (Rover’s country)[1996];

- Depicts his relationship with his

- Use of black conveys a sense of

- Warm earthy tones invites the audience

- She experienced segregation, assimilation, self determination and reconciliation

- Paintings carried messages of Aboriginal ancestors, belief systems and their

- 1978- Utopia, batik was introduced to women

- 1988- Central Australia Aboriginal Media Associations introduced western mediums

- Australia’s leading painters of modern times

- Born in 1910 in Utopia, didn't start painting until 1988

- Over 80 years old when she began to paint with acrylics

- Art practices evolved around dreaming and Aboriginal spirituality

- Painted what was important to her

- Style changed from lines and lots to the “colourist style”

- Orientation matters not

- Organic strokes resembles Japanese calligraphic characters

- Japanese and Western audiences comment that it has similarities to Monet

- Didn't employ western traditions in their work

- Usually large scale, almost abstract

Big Yam (1996)

- Representation of yam roots and mirror image of cracked earth

- Life- linked network of roots

- Interconnecting lines- ancestral connection

- Use of dots shows climax

- Dots fusing together to form lines suggest dance movements

- Her colour palette determined by seasons

- Dusty browns during dry season, greens during rain season

- “W hole lot, whole lot everything ”

- Dots- swirling formation, dynamic sense of movement

- Born 4 December 1948, Died 23 October 1996

- Scottish Aboriginal artist of Wiradjuri decent

- Self taught urban artist

- Discovered his own identity by mixing the

- Onus became fascinated with spray painting and

- Became a successful painter, sculptor and