QUEENSLAND.- A major retrospective exhibition of one of Queensland’s most successful artists, Gordon Bennett, will open at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) this weekend.

Arts Minister Rod Welford encouraged Queenslanders to visit the touring exhibition from the National Gallery of Victoria between 10 May and 3 August.

“The exhibition will feature more than 80 key paintings, works on paper, installations and video performance by Bennett from 1987 to the present,” Mr Welford said.

“Gordon Bennett is a Brisbane-based artist, who was born in Monto in 1955. He studied Fine Arts at the Queensland College of Art, before going on to win a number of prestigious art prizes and establish an international reputation.

“His complex, sometimes confronting, paintings have consistently challenged representations of cultural identity and post-colonial politics for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

“This exhibition celebrates his outstanding contribution to contemporary Australian art, and reflects not only the diversity of his work but the continuing relevance of the issues he addresses.”

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition included key works from Bennett’s early years, as well as examples from his well-known Notes to Basquiat and Home Décor series.

“This is a much-anticipated survey, that charts Bennett’s journey from the raw expressionist paintings produced after his graduation from art school to his recent and dramatic shift to abstraction,” Mr Ellwood said.

“It also highlights how Bennett’s work interrogates representations of history and the constructed nature of knowledge and perception and prompts us into a re-thinking of our own personal beliefs and positions.”

Gordon Bennett includes major works sourced from private and public collections including the Queensland Art Gallery; Museum of Modern Art, Heide; Art Gallery of Western Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.

The exhibition is supported by the Contemporary Touring Initiative through Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government and state and territory governments.