Ben Quilty

Ben Quilty (b.1973) lives and works in Australia. Widely known for his thick, gestural oilpaintings, Quilty has worked across a range of media including drawing, photography, film, sculpture and installation. His works often serve as a reflection of social and political events; from the current global refugee crisis to the complex social history of our country, he isconstantly critiquing notions of identity, patriotism and belonging.

Quilty’s work has been exhibited in a number of significant national and internationalexhibitions including ‘Show Me Your Sexy Urbanity Fotos’, Hohenstrausenstr, Frankfurt,Germany (2004); ‘Truth and Likeness’ National Portrait Gallery, Canberra(2006); ‘Together in Harmony for 50 Years: Linking Australian and Korean Arts’,KoreaCultural Exchange Centre, Seoul, Korea (2011); ‘Trigger-Happy: Ben Quilty’sBrave New World’, Drill Hall Gallery Australian National University (2013); ‘DarkHeart’ Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2014);‘Panorama’ Tarrawarra Art Museum (2016); ‘Painting. More Painting’ Australian Centre forContemporary Art (2016); ‘When Silence Falls’, Art Gallery of NSW (2016); ‘Charles’Insitu, Kurfurstenstrasse, Berlin (2016); ‘Mad Love’ at Arndt Art Agency (A3), Berlin (2017)and the’ NGV Triennial’ (2017); ‘Quilty’ Art Gallery of South Australia,Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Art Gallery of NSW (2019).

In 2011 the Australian War Memorial commissioned Quilty to travel to Afghanistan asAustralia’s official war artist. The resulting body of work exhibited at the National ArtSchool Gallery in 2013 received critical acclaim and went on to tour art galleries acrossAustralia up until 2016. In 2014 he was selected as the overall winner of the Prudential EyeAward,Singapore and invited to become the first Australian to hold a solo exhibition at Saatchi Gallery in London (2014). He is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourneand Arndt Art Agency, Berlin