How does Outsider (painting) elucidate its Background?
'Outsider' is considered an example of Outsider Art and Indigenous Australian Art. Bennett practices Outsider art to represent his experiences as a bi-cultural Australian of both Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. His painting confronts the idea of cultural identity within his artwork where he has stated that his feelings of alienation are through his Australian education system and the representation of Indigenous Australians in Western culture. Outsider, along with many of Bennett's other works is concerned with exploring Australian's colonial past and postcolonial present. The painting explores issues associated with the dominant role that white, Western culture has played in constructing the social and cultural landscape of the nation. Bennett had painted Outsider during his education at the Queensland College of Art in 1988, his final year. His two electives, Classicism and Aboriginal Art and Culture had heavily influenced Outsider's conception within the same year.
The unveiling of trauma was a common subject for Bennett. Outsider avoids the glorification of Australia's history and instead focuses on the depiction of violence to reflect the effects of colonisation. In painting the composition of Outsider during 1988, Bennett attempted to realistically depict the marginal effect of the First Fleet and "to question the way power is exercised (by) disputing claims to domination". He came to learn about Australian history and Indigenous Australians through a Eurocentric bias that had "colonised my mind and body". The Eurocentric perspective was particularly evident for Bennett in the 1988 bicentennial celebrations that had glorified the First Fleet and their pillage. During the 1988 celebrations, Bennett had expressed disapproval in "the grip of bicentennial celebrations that… set out to retrace the journey of the ‘first (European) fleet’ to Australia". Historical events were re-enacted by individuals in period costume and were broadcast on television, commemorated in books and reproduced in magazine. Bennett feared that the romanticised images of ships, danger and adventure faced by the First Fleet were contributing to the reinforcement of Australia's colonial identity through the lens of a selective history and to be deemed as the mainstream. He sought to create a field of disturbance and to necessitate the ‘re-reading’ of Australian history through his painting of Outsider (1988).  Critic McLean purports that Outsider could be considered Bennett's unofficial and ironic contribution to Australia's bicentenary celebrations in 1988.Bennett has intended to portray his main subject within Outsider, Indigenous Australia as victims, a way in which Bennett could come to terms with his own alienating experiences. He sought to display the extent of their pain to the point of self-mutilation rather than portraying a display of resistance or strength in opposition to their colonisation. The decapitated Indigenous Australian figure is looking for a head to replace his missing one and Bennett parallels this process to a "transplantation of culture".Outsider is one of Bennett's many works that features criticism on Captain James Cook's positioning of Indigenous Australians as 'savages', 'primitives' and therefore as 'ahistorical' which Bennett claims is nothing more than a distorted "mirror reflection of European societies".  Bennett expresses a degree of discontent toward 'white' Australia and has stated that it has proven to be a "master of moralising" in his own experiences. Some individuals have come to regard his expression of an Aboriginal point of view as a 'guilt trip' designed to make non-Indigenous Australians feel guilty about Australia's past. In other instances, some have derided his works as existing within the 'guilt industry' and derogatorily denoted as being 'politically correct'.
Australia bi-cultural Eurocentric bias ahistorical period costume postcolonial Australian history guilt trip other Classicism Queensland College of Art Indigenous Australian Art Indigenous Australians cultural identity bicentennial celebrations Aboriginal Art Indigenous Australian Outsider Art self-mutilation resistance colonial politically correct Western culture First Fleet colonisation Culture Outsider art James Cook romanticised identity