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Lot 12

Ben Quilty
(born 1973)
Matt Black (Captain Cook Rorschach), 2009 100.0 x 90.0cm (39 3/8 x 35 7/16in).(each)
180.0 x 200.0cm (70 7/8 x 78 3/4in). (overall)

Important Australian Art

22 April 2021, 18:30 AEST

Melbourne, Armadale

Sold for AU$110,700 inc. premium

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Ben Quilty (born 1973)

Matt Black (Captain Cook Rorschach), 2009
all signed and numbered verso
one titled verso: '4 Cooks'
oil, aerosol and acrylic on linen
100.0 x 90.0cm (39 3/8 x 35 7/16in).(each)
180.0 x 200.0cm (70 7/8 x 78 3/4in). (overall)

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane
Private collection, Brisbane

Ben Quilty's Rorschach paintings are 'inspired by Hermann Rorschach's eponymous ink blots, introduced in the early twentieth century as a tool for psychological testing, this way of working represents a perilous strategy as a painting technique, with Quilty loading the canvas with impasto oil paint only to destroy the surface by pressing a second unpainted canvas directly on the first. The swathes of impasto, for which he is celebrated, are obliterated in the act of doubling. Chance intervenes in creating accidents and abstractions that invite us to reflect on our own perceptions, desire and experiences.

Quilty returns time and time again to the Rorschach process, a tool created to divine delusion and trauma'.1 The present work combines this replicating process with four images of Captain Cook staring intently across from each other. The portrait of Captain Cook based upon the depiction by Nathaniel Dance from 1766 is a recurring image in Quilty's work, as he reflects on the trauma caused to the Indigenous culture whilst also linking the Australian male psyche and the notion of masculinity in modern day culture.

1. Dr Lisa Slade, 'The Colour of Quilty', Ben Quilty, Penguin Random House, Melbourne, 2019, p. 33

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