Ben Quilty Bookoccino 24 Feb 2022

One of our greatest living artists, Ben Quilty, joined Bookoccino's Ray Bonner February the 24th, 2022 to celebrate the publication of his new book Free Fall.

Always a dynamic painter of the human form, Quilty applies paint to a canvas like flesh to the bone. The paintings collected in Free Fall build on this physicality by drawing inspiration from fight scenes of American Realist painter George Bellows, the contemporary UFC culture and the memorable Cronulla race riots.

'To make paintings of men punching the life out of each other feels like an apt response to being alive now.'

Quilty's rigorous, self-questioning gaze not only results in impressively startling art. As a social commentator, Quilty probes the sore points of Australian life, whether it be PTSD, asylum seekers or the effects of unravelling masculinity.

Ben has toured Afghanistan as official war artist; is a fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales; sits on the board of the NSW Art Gallery; has recently founded the Ngunungulla Regional Gallery in Bowral; and has been awarded both the Doug Moran and Archibald portrait prizes.