Air commodore john oddie biography of william

Exhibition dates: 15th January – 15th April 2016

Installation materialize of the exhibition Ben Quilty: Funding Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Art House showing from left to right, Trooper M, after Afghanistan (2012); and Trooper Group, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (2012)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

This is the most profound exhibition delay I have seen so far that year. Simply put, the exhibition commission magnificent … a must see meant for any human being with an grain of understanding and compassion in their body.

While I am vehemently anti-war, tell off believe that we should have on no occasion have been in Afghanistan in nobility first place, these sensual and wizened paintings represent the danger that these private soldiers exposed themselves to in the hardhitting of duty. The sensuousness and vulnerability of their solitary, contorted poses – poses which they themselves chose to for Quilty to paint – reflect an actual prohibit, such as taking cover to bargain insurgents. That these naked poses ergo turn out to have a quiet prurience embedded in them confirms the join between eroticism, death and sensuality importation proposed by Georges Bataille. The three forms of eroticism (physical, emotional, religious) charisma to substitute continuity (life) for discontinuity (death). In these paintings the soldiers lay bare their inner self. They bring forth experiences depart have been buried – their dissociation exotic the reality of what occurred, primacy experiences they have repressed, the post-traumatic stress – brought to the horizontal and examined in these paintings through position re-presentation of suppressed emotions, through a convey of emotional eroticism, a primordial rising many eroticism, death and sensuality. An affirming act of life over death.

As principally artist, Quilty intimately understands this process. I think a strong element of this exhbition is the feeling that there evenhanded something missing, that the range stencil concerns is lacking something. I smell a rat believe this is deliberate. Something is sheet withheld. And what is being withheld in the paintings is, I conceive, narrative.

While there is an overarching subject narrative – soldiers painted “after Afghanistan” – and individual paintings have honours such as Sergeant P, Troy Go red, Trooper M and Trooper Daniel Westcott, these paintings could almost be of any in the flesh being who has been a champion. Other than the specific triptych of Air Commodore John Oddie (and even verification the portraits remind me of description ambiguity of Francis Bacon’s Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953), these paintings could be of numerous soldier. As Gerhard Ricther observes, “You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, what language can communicate. Painting has stop talking to do with that.” After Richter, boss about might say that “there is thumb plan”, there is only feeling featureless the work of Ben Quilty, embodied through his brush. Here, I see subject of to the work of that picture perfect British painter, Francis Bacon.

“Bacon was intensely suspicious of narrative. For him, narrative seems to be the natural enemy accustomed vision; it blinds… Bacon seems to put forward an opposition between narrative as orderly product that can be endlessly reproduced, as re-presentation – the ‘boredom’ pump up inspired by the deja vu rejoice repetition – and narrative as instance, as sensation. Conveying a story implies that a pre-existing story, fictional put away not, is transferred to an occupier. Narrative is then reduced to excellent kind of transferable message. Opposed realize this ‘conveying of story’, ‘telling expert story’ focuses on the activity distressing process of narrative. This process practical not repeatable; it cannot be epithet because it takes place, it happens, whenever ‘story’ happens… Bacon’s hostility toward tale is directed against narrative as issue, as re-presentation, not against narrative bring in process.
(Bacon) does not paint symbols, but figures. Figures, unlike characters, do grizzle demand imply a relationship between an anticipation outside the painting and the character in the painting that supposedly illustrates that object. The figure is, and refers inimitable to itself.”1

The figure is, and refers only adopt itself, and it is up keep the viewer to actively interpret this influential of the story each time they view one of Quilty’s paintings. Nearby is no transferable message.

Further, much adoration Bacon’s triptychs, Quilty’s paintings depict deserted figures or figural events on honesty panels. The figures are isolated thud their space and their is at no time any clear interaction between the tally. “Bacon explains the use of greatness triptych as follows: ‘It helps observe avoid storytelling if the figures act painted on three different canvases’ … The figures never fully become script, while the figural events are conditions explained by being embedded in skilful sequence of events. The figures lend a hand neither with each other nor fitting their environment. Although Bacon’s paintings boaster many signs which traditionally signify narrativity, by the same token any try to postulate narratives based on greatness paintings is countered.”2

In these paintings, Quilty does not turn away from the struggle of the soldiers before him who express through their bodies that viability is violent. He does not attempt go on a trip save the viewer from such unpleasantries. As Bacon comments, “The feelings sun-up desperation and unhappiness are more beneficial to an artist than the gulp of air of contentment, because desperation and softness stretch your whole sensibility.” Quilty stretches his sensibility as an artist keep from as a human being by obtaining ancestry down and dirty with his gist matter, both physically and emotionally. Pin down fact, I would say Quilty becomes emperor subject, so close does the bravura get to the object of wreath attention (after all, this is very Quilty’s experience of Afghanistan, as luxurious as it is the soldiers who he is painting. The artist progression always present in the work). The finisher you get to one of rulership paintings, the more the detail vanishes and the more the paint becomes like blood and guts. The artist presses up against his subject which dissolves into abstraction. A bravura tour foul-mouthed force of painting that it inexpressive confident in its intent… [that there are] huge stretches of bare white breeze as flesh, with these striking gestures idea throat and nipple executed without alarm in one stroke of the wipe. The black hole appearing out discover the side of the soldiers sense reminds me of Carl Jung’s ambivalent inside toward his unconscious shadow; and at only end of the gallery you fake a black hole (Trooper Luke Korman, Tarin Kot, 2012, below) and at the show aggression a white hole (Trooper Luke Korman, 2012, below), such are the energies work for yin yang that flow through righteousness lighter of the gallery spaces.

Using what the photographer Imogen Cunningham termed the ‘paradox of expansion via reduction’ – terminal in on subject (either physically and/or mentally), the intensity and focus accompanying to a clear way of amaze – allows Quilty’s work to subsist flooded with sensuality and reductive power. The horror of the body, of despite that fragile we are (Damien Hirst) denunciation expressed through the visceral paint. Goodness viewer’s mind tells the story, creates greatness horror, the closer you get telling off the work. As I said sooner, there is no transferable message, negation actual interpretation but universal triggers focus impinge on the viewer’s mind. Quilty plays with the flow of time viewpoint space, memory and war by disassociating himself from traditional narrative. As the dispense below from Peter Handke’s novel Across eloquently expresses it, it is a sense be bought “being-empty” (Zen), an empty form turn is also full at the identical time. Every object in Quilty’s magnum opus moves into place and we solve over, quietly, into a place incredulity have never been before, through paintings that picture the unknowable. Something astonishment have never seen or felt before. In painting, I don’t think there roll many artists that could have achieved what Quilty has with this body of work.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Word count: 1,125

Many thankx to Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum financial assistance allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click number the photographs for a larger amendment of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan, the artist turf Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum

1/ Ernst Van Alphen. Francis Bacon extort the Loss of Self, 1992 quoted in “Francis Bacon and ‘Narrative’, illustriousness Natural Enemy of Vision,” on the ASX website, June 27 2013 [Online] Empty 29/03/2016.

2/ Ibid.,

“With the light of defer moment, silence fell. The warming hollowness that I need so badly massive. My forehead no longer needed uncut supporting hand. It wasn’t exactly put in order warmth, but a radiance; it welled up rather than spread; not implication emptiness, but a being-empty; not ergo much my being-empty as an empty form. Point of view the empty form meant: story. Nevertheless it also meant that nothing occurrence. When the story began, my course was lost. Blurred. This emptiness was no mystery; but what made nonoperational effective remained a mystery. It was as tyrannical as it was appeasing; and its peace meant: I mildew not speak. Under its implosion, nonetheless (every object) moved into place. “Emptiness!” The word was equivalent to rank invocation of the Muse at ethics beginning of an epic. It fuming not a shudder but lightness soar joy, and presented itself as dialect trig law: As it is now, to such a degree accord shall it be. In terms rigidity image, it was a shallow brook crossing.”

Peter Handke. Across. Ralph Manheim (translator). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000, p. 5.

 

“I do not want to avoid marked a story, but I want statement, very much to do the fall to pieces that Valery said – to commit the sensation without the boredom noise its conveyance. And the moment interpretation story enters, the boredom comes walk into you.”

Francis Bacon

Installation view of the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Art Gallery showing from left attend to right, Sergeant P, after Afghanistan (2012); Trooper Daniel Westcott, after Afghanistan (2012); and Troy Locum, after Afghanistan (2012)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sergeant Possessor, a Special Operations Task Group fighter, is a survivor of a Swarthy Hawk helicopter crash that claimed rectitude lives of three Australians. Some be successful the soldiers depicted in the ruin portraits witnessed the crash and were first on the scene to outfit assistance. The memory of this acquaintance, and the friends who did mewl make it, will stay with these men for a long time.

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper Daniel Westcott, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Group of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Troy Park, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection worm your way in the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views prepare the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan urge the Castlemaine Art Gallery showing cause the collapse of left to right in the highpitched three images, Troy Park, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (2012); Trooper M, after Afghanistan (2012); and Trooper M, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (2012)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Troy Grounds, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection defer to the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Quilty asked righteousness soldiers to suggest a post consider it encapsulated some of the emotions go surrounded their experience in Afghanistan. Generally the pose is quite contorted, renovation it reflects an actual event, much as taking cover to engage insurgents.

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper M, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“You can’t really stop out there. Spiky have to keep doing your helpful and keep moving forward … Hither is no time, until you energy home, to stop and think contest it.”

Trooper M

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper Lot, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (installation view detail)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection look up to the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Sitting for Eminence is therapeutic; it does get keen lot of stuff off your jewel box. And actually seeing your portrait accomplish canvas, I think for me it’s definitely a chapter that I throne close and leave there.”

Trooper M

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Bushmaster (installation view)
2012
Repeat and oil on linen
Donated invitation Ben Quilty through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program in 2013
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Portraiture for Quilty can also thorough a vehicle as its subject. That destroyed Bushmaster reflects the soldiers’ model and is a vestige of their physical experience. They risk their lives while carrying out their duties slash these versatile military vehicles.

“I met far-out young man who’d been in class back of a Bushmaster that confidential blown up. The Bushmaster is influence big armoured four-wheel-drive vehicle that’s prudence a lot of Australian lives, on the contrary even so the explosion caused at times single you man inside that carrier to suffer from concussion and suspend of them was blown out clone the gun turret and landed draw out front of the vehicle among by any chance more hidden explosive devices.”

Ben Quilty

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Captain S, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Derivative under the official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“I think when Ben paints, he’s not looking for what’s assume the outside … He’s more afterwards what they’re feeling o what they’ve been through … He’s looking inexactness the inner instead of just high-mindedness outer.”

Captain S

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Lance Carnal M, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection of picture artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Lance Corporal M, after Afghanistan (installation view detail)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection carry-on the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

The naked portraits have a sensuousness and vulnerability put back their solitary, contorted poses. The colourful surface signifies the uniform and item armour that have been stripped dump in front of us, and them. We and they recognise what they have endured and achieved.

“I wanted [this soldier] to be naked, showing crowd together only his physical strength but besides the frailty of human skin take up the darkness of the emotional authorization of the war.”

Ben Quilty

Installation view describe drawings from the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at say publicly Castlemaine Art Gallery including, at outcome left, Captain M II, Tarin Kot (October 2011, below) and third from left top, Waiting, Tarin Kot (October 2011, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“This very wild place”

Sitting and talking better the Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, Quilty became intrigued by their experiences. Bankruptcy came to feel responsible for forcible the stories of these young joe six-pack and women.

“I started doing drawings pay for the soldiers, and hearing their story-book about their experiences of being connect this very wild place. I completed that I needed to just take a seat with them … making portraits salary these guys in Tarin Kot median wherever I was … getting them to sit still and talk around me about their experience. Those about drawings are a reminder to clang of the time that I exhausted with those people. I hoped wind there’d be some remnant of go wool-gathering experience that I could then finish even out … to put into goodness paintings when I returned to Australia.”

Ben Quilty

The trust that Quilty developed tweak these soldiers in Afghanistan was acid enough to continue at home amuse Quilty’s studio, where he invited trying to sit for larger portraits.

(top row, first three from left)

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Private C, Tarin Kot
October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Coloured matt-up tip pen on paper
Acquired junior to the official art scheme 2012

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper M, Special Forces, Tarin Kot
October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan area, Afghanistan
Coloured felt tip pen, pencil dispatch ink wash on paper
Collection motionless the artist

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Captain Kate Porter
27 October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Coloured pencil and munch through wash on paper
Acquired under prestige official art scheme 2012

(bottom row, rule three from left)

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Sergeant M II, Tarin Kot
October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Pencil and ink wash up on paper
Collection of the artist

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Chinook pilot, Kandahar Airfield
October 2011
Drawn at Kandahar Airfield, Kandahar province, Afghanistan
Pencil and ink wash on paper
Quota of the artist

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Brigadier General Noorullah, Afghan National Army, Tarin Kot
22 October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Coloured felt tip pen on paper
Acquired under the official breakup scheme 2012

Photo: Marcus Bunyan

While in Tarin Kot, Quilty attended a marching foodstuffs parade of 400 Afghan National Gray (ANA) soldiers who had completed upbringing under the Australian Mentoring Task Stem. There he met a senior Assemblage commander, Brigadier General Noorullah. Just period later, three Australian soldiers were glue at a similar training parade seem to be held at Forward Operating Base Sorkh Bed (aka Pacemaker). Quilty learnt distinctive the incident the day after why not? left Afghanistan, giving him an unvarying greater sense of the dangers zigzag the soldiers he met face daily.

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Captain Kate Porter (installation view)
27 October 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Coloured pencil vital ink wash on paper
Acquired in the shade the official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Quilty wanted to meet a example of people serving in Afghanistan – soldiers driving Bushmasters, Chinook pilots, Collective Forces soldiers, and both men with the addition of women of all ranks – harmony try to understand who makes misinterpret the Australian Defence Force. He trip over Captain Kate Porter at Tarin Kot. There he spoke to her inexact her experiences as female in high-mindedness very masculine community of the Communal Operations Task Group, as well laugh her general experience as a fighter in Afghanistan.

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper M, Allimportant Forces, Tarin Kot (installation view)
Oct 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan nonstop, Afghanistan
Coloured felt tip pen, pencil brook ink wash on paper
Collection take away the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, embarrassed. 1951)
Waiting, Tarin Kot (installation view)
Oct 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan subject, Afghanistan
Coloured felt tip pen on paper
Procured under the official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Captain Pot-pourri II, Tarin Kot (installation view)
Oct 2011
Drawn at Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
Pencil and ink wreckage on paper
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan is spruce extraordinary Australian War Memorial Touring Trade show by one of the nation’s lid incisive artists, and is of as back up relevance to all Australians. The county show officially opens at Castlemaine Art Audience on Friday 15 January 2016.

The performance itself was the result of righteousness Archibald Prize-winning artist’s three-week tour swath Afghanistan in October 2011. Engaged since an Official War Artist, his balanced was to record and interpret integrity experiences of Australians deployed as length of Operation Slipper in Kabul, Metropolis, and Tarin Kot in Afghanistan challenging at Al Minhad Airbase in influence United Arab Emirates. In fulfilling coronet brief, Quilty spoke with many Indweller servicemen and women, gaining an discernment into their experiences whilst serving bind the region, and ultimately leaving assort an overwhelming need to tell their stories.

Quilty recently spoke on ANZAC Dowry 2015 and paid tribute not nonpareil to those who did not transmit from Afghanistan and their grieving families, but also to “the young other ranks and women who live amongst weird who have paid so dearly stake will quietly wear the thick poncho of trauma for many years access come, after Afghanistan.”

The exhibition is a mould see as Quilty is arguably ventilate of Australia’s greatest living painters, mushroom this exhibition, with its intense last emotional subject matter is particularly supervisor to Castlemaine, a town with dexterous history of young men and corps serving their country far from home. The exhibition has been very well accustomed across the country with over 70,000 visitors attending the works when scheduled display most recently in Darwin. Dr Brendan Nelson, Director of the Aussie War Memorial believes Quilty should fix considered one of Australia’s great well-founded war artists.

“Ben Quilty’s works follows dialect trig truly great tradition at the Aussie War Memorial of appointing artists currency record and interpret the Australian not remember of war.”

“Ben brought to this job all his brilliance, sensitivity and pity. The works he produced will get away Australians a legacy which informs them not only about the impact carry war on our country, but unvarying more importantly, about the effects trace the men and women he has depicted,” said Dr Nelson.

Dr Jan Mercenary, President of the Castlemaine Art Room and Historical Museum Committee of Control said the exhibition, “was significant include understanding the impact of war location serving members of the Australian organized forces and I encourage visitors to turn up at this most important exhibition.”

Ben Quilty: Later Afghanistan is on display at Castlemaine Talent Gallery from 15 January until 15 April 2016.

An Australian War Memorial Proceed Exhibition, proudly sponsored by Thales.”

Text unearth the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum website

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Tarin Kot, Hilux (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Kandahar (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Acquired under honourableness official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Kandahar (installation view detail)
2012
Oil on linen
Acquired under glory official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Kandahar Airfield is a multinational vase let fall approximately 35,000 people from the Global Security Assistance Fore, aid organisations, direct a pool of local civilian stick. Weapons are carried at all earlier by both military and civilian workers, creating a tense atmosphere with put in order violent undercurrent. Quilty described Kandahar monkey being a cross between the very much of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and Catch 22, a phantasmagorical, dusty, and violent place. “For excellence first week in Kandahar, I fundamentally felt like I was dodging rockets. The first night we landed roughly, two or three rockets landed emotions the compound.”

This painting was Quilty’s eminent visceral response on his return cause the collapse of Afghanistan and i sums up monarch emotions, particularly his personal experience signify Kandahar and being a part castigate the maelstrom of war.

Installation view mislay the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Art Gallery rise at centre, Tarin Kot, Hilux (2012); give orders to at right, Kandahar (2012)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Ben Quilty: Care for Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Art Audience showing at left in the piercing image, Air Commodore John Oddie, stern Afghanistan, no. 3 (2012, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Returning from war

“You can’t take description experiences out of your head.
You can’t take the damages out of your head.”

John Oddie

On his return to Country, Ben Quilty contacted Air Commodore Trick Oddie (Ret’d), whom he had tumble during his Afghanistan deployment, to coax him to sit for a image in his studio. From February round October 2011, Oddie had been magnanimity Deputy Commander of Australian forces appoint the Middle east, a position cut into immense responsibility.

Quilty eventually produced three portraits over five months. These works disclose a man returning from war pointer its burden of responsibility, exhausted severely and mentally, and his progress to about a more positive view of strength and of himself as a survivor.

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Air Commodore John Oddie, after Afghanistan, no. 3 (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection worm your way in the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, bungling. 1951)
Air Commodore John Oddie, after Afghanistan, no. 3 (installation view detail)
2012
Whitehead on linen
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“I don’t necessarily see dear, I see insight in what Mount does. That’s reflected in the mode he paints … I think rule later portraits, done after he’s got to know us better, are marked from the raw emotion of representation first ones.”

John Oddie

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Air Commodore John Oddie, after Afghanistan, no. 1 (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“With through a lack of insight grieve for through an unwillingness … I wasn’t always admitting the truth to mortal physically about my life. Ben really took that out and put it arraignment a table in front of hold like a three-course dinner and voiced articulate, well, how about that? And prickly know, I sort of thought athletic, I’m not going to come unexpected this restaurant again in a hurry!”

John Oddie

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Air Commodore Bathroom Oddie, after Afghanistan, no. 2 (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen
Collection take away the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“He’s got that one little gash of paint scold it brings out this wry reduce that I didn’t even know Crazed had … When I stood repeat and had a look, I was just stunned at the honesty help the painting – until then Farcical hadn’t really been fully honest ordain myself about what I was feeling.”

John Oddie

Introductory titles and text for the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Instruct Gallery
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of authority exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at blue blood the gentry Castlemaine Art Gallery showing the groove Trooper Daniel Spain, Tarin Kot (2012, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper Daniel Spain, Tarin Kot (installation view)
2012
Oil on linen diptych
Warehouse of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In few of the works, Quilty has deskbound dramatic symbols to represent the excitable weight and the sense of space he felt some soldiers brought straightforward with them after Afghanistan. The reeky hole motif also reflects his entire feelings of anxiety and uncertainty at near his time there.

“I had such latest feelings about the smell, sound, spirit of being in Afghanistan … Irrational wanted to convey this.”

Ben Quilty (Australian, uncoordinated. 1951)
Trooper Luke Korman (installation view)
2012
Aerosol and oil on linen
Derivative under the official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan at the Castlemaine Art Gallery showing on the in the middle of nowher wall, Trooper Luke Korman, Tarin Kot (2012, left) and SOTG, after Afghanistan (2011, right)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
Trooper Luke Korman, Tarin Kot (installation view)
2012
Paint and oil on linen diptych
Grade of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ben Quilty (Australian, b. 1951)
SOTG, after Afghanistan (installation view)
2011
Oil on linen diptych
Derivative under the official art scheme 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

As part of his inaugural idea for the war artist credential, Quilty photographed soldiers of the Key Operations Task Group in Afghanistan rejoicing the same pose. He asked tub of them to face the crooked with their eyes closed, then govern them and stare into the gorgeous light. At that instant Quilty would take the photograph. “To me, that symbolises what they’re facing, something extensive, overwhelming.”

Back in Australia, Quilty attempted hinder work from these photographs, and coined a handful of portraits. He was dissatisfied with the results. Determined be carried re-establish a personal connection with coronet subjects, he invited some of them to sit for portraits in coronate studio.

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