BILLY PERRURLE BENN - ARTETYERRE

BILLY PERRURLE BENN
ARTETYERRE,  2008
122 x 61cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen
 
PROVENANCE
Harts Range, NT
Bindi Inc, NT
Coo-ee Gallery, NSW
 
STORY
Billy Benn was born in the Harts Range, 200 km north-east of Alice Springs in 1943 and died in 2012. As a young man, he worked in the local mine and learned to paint in watercolour from the Chinese wife of one of the miners. He did not begin painting in earnest, however, until 2000. The influence of Chinese painting traditions on Benn's art can be seen in the works' scale and perspective, their layered colour, and their self-assured brushstrokes. He whipped up skies and laid down slopes and escarpments with fluid single movements. Billy Benn has often been critically located outside of the art world category of fine art, as an outsider artist. This status has been conferred due to his stylistically naive approach, his mental condition, and the fact that he was characterised as an artist lost between worlds.
 
EXHIBITED
Billy Benn: Going Home, September 2014, Cooee Art Gallery