Basquiat & Warhola

Gordon Bennett’s art addressed the role of language, signs, and symbols in the construction of identity and historical narratives.  

Bennett always resisted the category of ‘Aboriginal,’ and ‘quoted’ a range of cultures and artistic styles in a way that undermined colonial history and racial stereotypes. 

In the 1990s he produced a series of works, Notes to Basquiat - a dialogue between Bennett and the prominent Haitian American/Puerto-Rican artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat (b.1960, d.1988). Bennett shared with Basquiat an obsession with drawing, semiotics, and visual language. His use of Arabic script in Basquiat & Warhola draws a parallel between the neo-colonialism of the US in the Middle East and the colonialism of the British in Australia in 1788. 

Bennett was concerned with the layers of experience that make up a person’s identity and the shared histories of human beings separated by time, space, and cultural contexts. Although primarily a painter, he also worked in installation and video, and wrote extensively about his art.