BEN QUILTY

This is a large, sprawling country. Without a car, forget it. Distances shrink behind the wheel, but highways never end. If you live in one of the capital cities, you can make a life for yourself with public transport and running shoes, but there are limits. Town planners recognise the problem but how much can they do? Every year they offer new inducements and greater hurdles, hoping to reduce our reliance on the road. But still we drive. We drive for convenience, and choice, and self-reliance, but survival plays a part as well. Venture out past the city limits and this becomes even more axiomatic. The unluckiest tourists are those who break down out bush then forget the one piece of knowledge that matters: always stay with your car.

And so, to Ben Quilty, and the drive to paint the world as it presents itself. His subjects are all around. These machines are everywhere. They bind the city to the bush, from the luxury SUVs in Watsons Bay to the broken-down old Toyotas outside of Tennant Creek. They are a symbol of freedom, masculinity, rebellion, even violence. But they are also an everyday concern, as ubiquitous as the trees and pigeons and power lines on our streets. They are functional objects, which makes them an unlikely source for poetry. We dont usually celebrate the family hatchback as art. But not every moment is Mad Max either.

As Quilty said in 2010: Cars are an integral part of the landscape around us Theyre part of our identity. As an artist, thats impossible to ignore.¹

In his Australian Landscape series, Quilty revels in the beautiful banality of suburbia. If Sidney Nolan once painted the essential untidiness of the Australian landscape, as John Olsen put it,² then a different sort of romance is on display here. These are everyday cars. Affordable cars. Sensible, practical cars.

In this image, it is a black Alfa Romeo parked on the curb of a wide, quiet street. Lean in closer, and there is a smudge of yellow, below the windscreen, which echoes the illuminated light from the window of the house at the side. Anything is possible in this suburban splendour, even a parking ticket. Draw back, and the car, shiny and black, shows greater detail than the rest of the scene. Its an object of wonder but there is also comfort in the familiarity. Looking down from above, the car appears at an angle, as though preening for a quick trade online, yet another feature on the endless Australian landscape.

Footnotes:
1. Cars on Canvas, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 2010
2. Wilson, A., The Sun King, The Weekend Australian, 10 September 2016

Ashleigh Wilson
Ashleigh Wilson is the author of Brett Whiteley: Art Life and the Other Thing (Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2016).