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Gordon Bennett claims to be involved in a personal resolution of his 'divided heritage' via his work, but it would seem his audience is determined to maintain the cultural division by examining his work only with regard to his position in relation to a polarity of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. By falling somewhere between the two, Bennett has gained a certain level of notoriety as critics debate the legitimacy of his role as 'Aboriginal Artist'.
In his most recent exhibition at Bellas Gallery, Bennett continues to address the role of Aborigines in Australian society and in art history. Or rather, he attacks the way this role has been created in the construction of history.
Web of Attrition, (5 panels), uses images from Australian art history. Our attention has been focussed on the edited version. Each panel appears as only part of a larger picture. We are shown only details: part of a leg, torso, and bottles in four of the five. The central image includes the vanishing point of a larger unseen picture, but no bottle. Bennett has reproduced certain images over and over to reinforce ideas and perceptions that degrade Aborigines while maintaining moral supremacy of the dominant culture, which projects on to the 'other' group what it cannot handle in itself.
The results and methods of cultural imperialism are recurrent themes in Bennett's work. In his painting, Under Surveillance (in the prison of culture) or I am (watching you), 'I Am' may refer to God or even perhaps to a yuppy 'spiritualism' that allows power to be manifest in material wealth. Both imply a viewer and an object of surveillance
The image is divided into two parts by a