CreatorBen QuiltyTitleJacketDate2017MediumOil on linenDimensionsH. 72cm x W. 62cmAccession NumberG2020.27.2Credit LineDonated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Ben QuiltyAccess AdviceFor research purposes only. No reproduction without permission of Yarrila Arts and Museum.
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Exhibition Label
On a beach in Lesbos, Quilty observed a ‘high tide mark’ of bright orange life jackets, discarded by Syrian asylum seekers as they reached the shore after making the perilous journey across open ocean from Turkey. In Quilty’s words, the vest symbolises the ‘ocean of humans that have moved across those waters’, themselves dislocated and dispersed like the cast-off jackets. [Sonia Legge, September 2020]
Significance Statement
Ben Quilty is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists with work in major public, private and corporate collections. He was a finalist in the prestigious Wynne and Archibald prizes and won the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 2009 and the Archibald Prize in 2011. As such, this work by Quilty fulfils the gallery’s second priority collection area of Australian art, Section 2.4.2 (2), as well as meeting the policy’s general principles of “excellence, innovation, high aesthetic quality, relevance, authenticity and cultural value”.
A donation such as this offers an enrichment of the collection that is difficult for the gallery to attain except through donation. The policy also emphasises the collection’s value and relevance to the local community. Quilty is also known as a social commentator and activist and this painting draws attention to the global, contemporary, humanitarian crisis of forced migration and asylum-seeking. As Coffs Harbour is a designated refugee resettlement area, the artwork has particular resonance for the local community.
