Golden soil, wealth for toil

Taking its title from a line in the Australian national anthem, this painting by Ben Quilty references a symbolic moment in the nation’s history. It is a contemporary restaging of Tom Roberts’ 1895 painting 'Bailed up', also in the Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, which captures the harshness of summertime in Kamilaroi Country in northern New South Wales. The scene depicts a stagecoach being held up by Captain Thunderbolt (Fred Ward), who was New South Wales’ last bushranger. Ward’s wife Mary Ann Bugg was a Worimi woman whose knowledge was crucial to Ward’s survival and taught him the importance of reciprocity within Aboriginal culture.

Quilty’s recreation does not possess the same delicate linework in Roberts’ painting, with its thick slabs of colour embodying a sense of bold, expressive abandon. In revisiting this history, Quilty comments on the foundation of modern Australia as a country built through a spirit of brash rebellion, but also the colonial pursuit of land and bounty.