seeks to incite change and to create a "turbulence in the complacent sense of identification with… history" where new possibilities for representation can arise. The grotesque The grotesque inspired Bennett to disrupt the serene quality of colonial images and the complacent acceptance of Australia's glorified history which had untruthfully glamorised and depicted the peaceful settlement of the Australian landscape. Bennett's use of the grotesque is seen within Outsider through a decapitated torso, stained blood and disembodied heads. Bennett specifically quotes Philip Thomson's passage The Critical Idiom: The Grotesque as a source of his inspiration: Bennett has also drawn inspiration from other artists such as Lucio Fontana and his cut canvases which Bennett interprets in a grotesque manner akin to mutilation. His inspiration for the depictions of spurting blood is also sourced through Aboriginal funeral ceremonies in which ritualised public displays of grief and mourning can involve blood-letting and the cutting of one own's body. Interpretations and symbolismOutsider''' opens interpretations to a broad range of philosophical ideas related to the construction of identity and perception through Bennett's experiences of Australia's colonial past and postcolonial present. Critics of Bennett's work, Bob Lingard and Fazal Rizvi interpret that Bennett fragments historical images and recontextualises them in order to nuance postcolonial possibilities. This is in line with Bennett's purpose to deconstruct Eurocentric conditioning which is seen within Outsider. Hugh Ramsey Chair of Australian Art History, Ian McLean expands on Bennett's appropriations by calling Outsider a "metaphysical quest for meaning and identity". Outsider could be interpreted in such a way that the decapitated figure could symbolise either Bennett or Van Gogh. Professor of philosophy, Melvin Rader has commented on the manifestoes of recent (art) schools and expresses how those within, such as Van Gogh, face feelings of "opposition and estrangement" as well as "madness and suicide" which is what Bennett sought to explore and display within his painting of Outsider. Though Van Gogh was an outsider to the art world, Bennett's decapitated figure is an outsider to his own country of origin and upbringing. Outsider reflects Van Gogh's realistic and humble "self-portrait full of prophecy and psychoanalytical premonitions". However Bennett's own appropriation is a violent ritual rather than Van Gogh's one of tense calmness, which McLean claims is "transparently staged, his mutilation is a public theatre rather than a private act of desperation". It is a blatantly shocking visualisation of the trauma which Van Gogh's