Ben Quilty
Multiple Works
the last day, 2020
NSW, AUSTRALIA
oil on linen
180 x 202 cm
Quilty doesn’t paint pretty. He paints pain, pressure, protest and the aftermath of all three. Last Days isn’t a polite whisper, it’s a full-body howl. Painted in 2020 (you know, that year), this colossal slab of oil and linen stares straight into the storm and doesn’t blink.
Raw, red, angry - there’s no hiding in these strokes. It’s the end of something. Or maybe the beginning of the reckoning. You can almost hear it scream: the burnt bush, the bodies, the quiet terror of staying home and watching the world unravel on a screen. Quilty’s paint is thick like grief, twisted like memory, bleeding like an open wound.
And yet somehow, there’s hope. A fractured kind, the kind you find when you’ve hit rock bottom and dig anyway. That’s what he does. He digs. Into us. Into himself.
ben, 2018
NSW, AUSTRALIA
Two Plate Colour Etching
A striking self-portrait of the artist himself.
the last supper, 2018
NSW, AUSTRALIA
Two Plate Colour Etching With
H & Cast Resin & Gilded Frame
106 X 140 cm
Ben Quilty’s The Last Supper is a striking reimagining of an age-old narrative, inviting us to step beyond the familiar and confront the contemporary pulse beneath the sacred. Executed in a meticulous two-plate colour etching, the work layers raw texture and visceral energy, amplified by the unexpected infusion of cast resin - a materiality that bridges the past with the present. Encased within a gilded frame, the piece oscillates between reverence and disruption, offering a dialogue between tradition and the artist’s fiercely modern voice.
Quilty’s work commands space, not just physically but emotionally - challenging us to reflect on themes of community, sacrifice, and human frailty with fresh eyes. This is a Last Supper not as an icon of certainty, but as a restless tableau that speaks to our fractured times and the complexity of connection.