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| Gordon Bennett born Australia 1955 Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) 1990 |
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| Colin McCahon New Zealander 1919–1987 Victory over death 2 1970 |
‘I AM’ is borrowed from a well known art work, Victory over death 2, 1970 by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (1919–1987) . It is also a direct reference to biblical stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. This rich interplay of words and images raises many questions. The simplicity of ‘I AM’ suggests a universality of thought. It is open to self revelation, self redemption and a myriad of rich images of self that can be built upon. McCahon uses ‘I AM’ to question notions of faith. Bennett uses it to question notions of self. ‘I am that I am’, Exodus 3:14 is God naming self. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name. If God cannot be contained, can humanity be contained by stereotypes and labels?
I decided that I was in a very interesting position: my mind and body had been effectively colonized by Western culture, and yet my Aboriginality, which had been historically, socially and personally repressed, was still part of me … I decided that I would attempt to create a space by adopting a strategy of intervention and disturbance in the field of representation through my art. Gordon Bennett 6
Bennett determines in Self portrait (But I always wanted to be one of the good guys) that labels and stereotypes have no relevance to a healthy construction of identity.
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