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21 20 ARTLINES 4 | 2020 THE GORDON BENNETT STUDIO could upgrade and replace analogue aspects of his practice. In 1995, Gordon was awarded a place in the Australian Network for Art and Technology Summer School in Brisbane. It was here that he developed computer skills that would soon influence his practice: not only in ‘painting stills’ but also in animation, video and scanning. Around the time of his next studio residency, as the recipient of the anniversary Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University’s Canberra School of Art in 1996, his entire modus operandi would change. Almost immediately, he moved from incessant pencil- jotting of thoughts in notepads to sourcing, lifting or sketching an image quickly. At odds with his peers, and many well-established or emerging artists at the time, Gordon had fully transitioned to adopt computer technology as a core studio tool, and never looked back. He quickly became highly adept at using Photoshop and other Adobe and Apple production and editing software in support of his aims. Gordon did not feel bound by technology; in fact, he enjoyed using it as a medium turned back on itself, especially given the strong conceptual linkages to his practice. After all, printing technologies and digital advances are themselves inextricably tied to the ubiquitous visual culture of racism and its trafficking, however intimate or global. Indeed, as McLean has suggested, all of Bennett’s paintings made following his Canberra studio residency — from the 1996 ‘Home décor’ series onwards — were worked up from preliminary Photoshop files. 2 Gordon enjoyed the immediacy and convenience of using technology and the time it saved him digging through notes, drawing or redrawing something. At the Samford Valley studio, Gordon was able to split the space in half, in order to work simultaneously on multiple works in a major series or exhibition. He would hang several works in a long line, playing them off against one another, making or lessening formal connections, going from canvas to canvas with one colour at a time to expedite continuity, Unfinished Business offers fresh insight into the work of Australian artist Gordon Bennett (1955–2014), including new interpretations of his intelligent synthesis of influences and ideas and globally recognised contribution to contemporary art. The publication includes more than 120 colour reproductions of Bennett’s paintings, installations and video works, including key series and a selection of rarely seen works on paper. Softcover, 200pp. (including more than 130 colour illustrations), available from the QAGOMA Store and online. RRP $49.95 | Members price $39.95 ‘ At odds with his peers, Gordon fully adopted computer technology as a core studio tool and never looked back ’ or optimise time. While Gordon was always working ‘in his head’, or on a screen, his time spent physically in the studio was used very efficiently and strategically, and was scheduled mostly to accord with the date a truck would arrive to cart works off for a commercial show or exhibition loan. Intense bursts of painting would ensue, including series of all-nighters that could sometimes run for weeks. He simply did not have any interest in sitting around painting to pass the time or exercise a habit; nor was studio time about honing technique or perfecting anatomical or landscape likenesses. One of my fondest memories of Gordon in the studio relates to a ‘joker’ figure that appears in several series across decades, and a variant of that figure who appears as a jester, with a harlequin hat, or Basquiat-like crown. As with many of the solitary figures in his work, the jester hat refers to Gordon himself, bearing witness, or expressing a universal truth via a very personal, lived experience, as a form of autobiography. While in particular works, such as Home décor (Preston + De Stijl = Citizen) Men with weapons 1997 (pictured opposite), the joker hat device adds gravitas and solemnity, the hat itself was a prop in his studio. Only in that private studio space would Gordon don it, rarely, to clown around in, as a way to disrupt the weight of the task in front of him. In those moments Gordon would lose self-consciousness, put on a mock rap face or cheeky grin, and once only he allowed me to take a portrait of him. It’s my most precious memory of Gordon in his studio. Simon Wright is Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement. This is an edited excerpt from his essay in the Gallery publication Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett . ‘Unfinished Business: The Art of Gordon Bennett’ is in the Marica Sourris and James C. Sourris AM Galleries (3.3 and 3.4), GOMA, until 21 March 2021. Endnotes 1 Leanne Bennett, email to Simon Wright, 10 February 2020. 2 Ian McLean, ‘The medium is the message: Gordon Bennett’s Home décor series (again)’, conference paper draft for National Gallery of Australia, 20 April 2001. Opposite Gordon Bennett / Home décor (Preston + De Stijl = Citizen) Men with weapons 1997 / Private collection / Image courtesy: The Estate of Gordon Bennett / © The Estate of Gordon Bennett Above right Gordon Bennett and Simon Wright in Amsterdam, 1999 / Image courtesy: The Estate of Gordon Bennett / Photograph: Leanne Bennett