Billy Benn Perrurle
1943 - 2012
Language: Alyawarre
Community: Utopia
Billy Benn Perrurle was born in the Harts Range, 200 km north-east of Alice Springs. As a young man, he worked in the local mine and learned to paint from a miner’s wife, who had been a Chinese watercolourist. Later when he began painting professionally, the influence of Chinese painting traditions was reflected in the scale and perspective of his artworks and their self-assured brushstrokes.
Though he painted with acrylics, the colours were arranged like a classic watercolour palette. These were applied as washes before thicker impasto paint was added. Soft pinks, golden yellows, bright oranges, velvet purples, and deep browns were used to create landforms and features. He whipped up skies and laid down slopes and escarpments with fluid single movements
PROFILE
Billy Benn Perrurle
1943 - 2012
Language: Alyawarre
Community: Utopia
Billy Benn Perrurle was born in the Harts Range, 200 km northeast of Alice Springs. As a young man, he worked in the local mine and learned to paint from a miner's wife, who had been a Chinese watercolourist. Later when he began painting professionally, the influence of Chinese painting traditions was reflected in the scale and perspective of his artworks and their self-assured brushstrokes.
Though he painted with acrylics, the colours were arranged like a classic watercolour palette. These were applied as washes before thicker impasto paint was added. Soft pinks, golden yellows, bright oranges, velvet purples, and deep browns were used to create landforms and features. He whipped up skies and laid down slopes and escarpments with fluid single movements.
Billy Benn’s art has often been critically located outside of the art world category of fine art. Journalist Nicholas Rothwell was one of many writers to refer to him as an outsider artist, a status conferred due to his stylistically naive approach, his mental condition, and the fact that he was characterised as ‘lost between worlds’.
Per Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists:
Established in 2000, the Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists studio is the first in Australia to occupy the intersection between supported studios and Aboriginal Art Centres. [...]
The Mwerre Anthurre Artists developed out of Bindi Enterprises, which was established in 1978 to provide employment and community engagement opportunities to people with disability. In the 1990’s the late Billy Benn Perrurle started his career painting on off-cuts of timber and sheets of metal from the Bindi workshop. From these humble beginnings, the collective grew into an essential and distinctive Aboriginal Art Centre with several artists creating work that is highly sought after by galleries and private collectors alike.
ARTIST CV
Collections:
Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands.
Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Solo Exhibitions:
2017 - Artetyerre, Cooee Art , Sydney.
2014 - Billy Benn Returning Home, Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney.
2010 - To Paint Every Hill, NG Art Gallery, Sydney.
2007 - Magic, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
2003 - Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin.
2002 - Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Grant Pirrie Gallery, Sydney.
Group Exhibitions:
2014 - The hills behond Hermannsburg, from the Gallery's Indigenous Collection, featuring the work of Arnulf Ebatarinja, Conley Ebatarinja, Benjamin Landara, Tristam Malbunka, Albert Namatjira, Keith Namatjira, Lenie Namatjira, Maurice Namatjira, Oscar Namatjira, Claude Pannka, Gloria Pannka, Nelson Pannka, Ivy Pareroultja, Otto Pareroultja, Billy Benn Perrurle, Norman Ratara, Vanessa Splinter, Roland Uburtja, Alison Walbungara, Richard Moketarinja at the AGNSW, Sydney.
2013 - Beautiful Art, featuring Adrian Robertson, Billy Benn, Billy Kenda, Conway Ginger, Jane Mervin, Kukula Mcdonald, Lance James, Woolloongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld.
2013 - New Works, featuring Billy Benn, Dan Raberaba, Jane Mervin, Kukula Mcdonald at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2013 - Good, strong, powerful, featuring Adrian Robertson, Billy, Benn, Billy Kenda, Kukula Mcdonald, Lance James at Tandanya National Aboriginal Institute, Adelaide, SA.
2013 - Bindi Artists 2013, featuring Billy Benn Kemerre, Kukula McDonald, Jane Mervin, Dan Raberaba at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2011 - Good Strong Powerful featuring the work of Lorna Kantilla, Alfonso Puantjimi and Estelle Munkanome, Billy Benn Perrurle, Kukula McDonald, Billy Kenda, Lance James and Adrian Robertson, Dion Beasley and Peggy Jones Napangardi at Arts Project Australia, 24 High St, Northcote Gallery, Melbourne.
2011 - Bindi 2011, featuring the work of Billy Benn Perrurle, Billy Kenda, Adrian Robinson, Kukulu McDonald and Lance James at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2010 - A View on Country, featuring Bill Benn Perrurle, Kukula McDonald, Adrian Robertson, Lance James and Billy Kenda at Mossenson Gallery, Perth, WA.
2010 - Looking Back at Country featuring the artists Makinti Napanangka, Billy Benn Perrurle and Martin Tjampitjinpa at Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
2010 - Remembering Country includes the artists Adrian Robertson, Kukula McDonald, Seth Namatjira, Billy Kenda, Lance James, and Billy Benn Perrurle, at Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
2010 - Emerging Elders, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
2009 - Bindi 2009, featuring the following artists: Billy Kenda, Billy Benn and Lance James, at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Reunited: Billy Benn Perrurle & Gladdy Kemarre, Mossenson Galleries, Melbourne.
2008 - Visions of Utopia, featuring the following artists: Angelina Ngal, Billy Benn Perrurle, Cowboy Loy Pwerl, Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarrey, Elizabeth Mpetyan, Gladdy Kemarr, Jean Kngwarrey, Kathleen Ngal, Maisy Petyarr, Nancy Petyarre Kunoth, Pansy Petyarr McLeod, Poly Ngal, Ruby Morton Kngwarrey, Trudy Raggett at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney.
2008 - Landscape Masters, featuring Billy Ben Perrurle, Adrian Robertson Jangala and Billy Kenda, at Alcaston Gallery, Sydney.
2008 - Bindi Artists 2008, featuring Billy Ben Perrurle, Kukula McDonald, Adrian Robertson Jangala and Billy Kenda, at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2008 - Land, Sea and the Universe, Alcaston Gallery @ the 2008 Melbourne Art Fair, Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne.
2007 - 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
2006 - Treasures from the Desert, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne; The second Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, Shalom College, University of New South Wales, Sydney; Billy Kenda, Kukula McDonald, Adrian Robertson and Billy Benn Perrurle, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2005 - 22nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; From little things, big things grow, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
2004 - 2004 Australian Culture Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Federation Square, Melbourne; Apmere - Country Land and Place, Recent works by artists from Mwerre Anthurre Alice Springs, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi; 21st Telstra National Aborigainal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
2003 - The Bindi Perspective, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs;
20th Telstra Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
2001 - Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment, Alice Springs.
2000 - Desert Mob, Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment, Alice Springs.
Awards:
2006 - Winner of the 2006 Alice Prize, Alice Springs.
Bibliography:
Green, Charles., 2004 Australian Culture Now, National Gallery of Victoria, 2004, Melbourne.
Billie Benn Perrurle & Catherine Peattie, 2011, Billy Benn, IAD Press, Alice Springs
MARKET ANALYSIS
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