In the context of this artwork, explore the The grotesque of the Sources of Inspiration.
The grotesque inspired Bennett to disrupt the serene quality of colonial images and the complacent acceptance of Australia's glorified history which had untruthfully glamorised and depicted the peaceful settlement of the Australian landscape. Bennett's use of the grotesque is seen within Outsider through a decapitated torso, stained blood and disembodied heads. Bennett specifically quotes Philip Thomson's passage The Critical Idiom: The Grotesque as a source of his inspiration:The characteristic impact of the grotesque, the shock which it causes, may be used to bewilder  and disorient the spectator, jeopardise or shatter their conventions by opening up onto vertiginous  new perspectives characterised by the deconstruction of logic and regression... thus the spectator  may be jolted out of accustomed ways of perceiving the world and confronted by radically different  and disturbing perspectives .
Bennett has also drawn inspiration from other artists such as Lucio Fontana and his cut canvases which Bennett interprets in a grotesque manner akin to mutilation. His inspiration for the depictions of spurting blood is also sourced through Aboriginal funeral ceremonies in which ritualised public displays of grief and mourning can involve blood-letting and the cutting of one own's body.
Lucio Fontana Australia grotesque canvas other colonial Grotesque