Billy Benn Perrurle

Billy Benn Perrurle or Billy Benn ( – 14 October 2012) was an Alyawarre landscape artist, with a disability, who worked with the Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists. His paintings celebrate the land of his people, near Harts Range in the Northern Territory of Australia and his personal knowledge of it.

Life and painting

Benn was born in Artetyerre (Harts Range) to an Alyawarre father and an Akarre mother. Benn learned to paint as a teenager, first from his sisters Ally and Gladdy on skin and then, as he remembers, from a 'Chinese lady'. Benn's father, Jimmy Kemerre, must have also been involved in teaching his son as he was also an artist; most known for creating beautiful traditional artefacts; including boomerangs and spears.

In his youth, starting around the age of 10, Benn worked around Central Australia for a number on mining companies, including the Harts Range Mica Field and the Arltunga Goldfields (now Arltunga Historical Reserve), mostly in the employ of Simon Rieff. During this period Benn remembered working with a lot of Italian migrants and fondly remembered lunches of spaghetti; saying "good food, those Italian people". Benn was not paid for his work and, instead received food and clothing. After the shooting Benn, along with 16 family members, went into hiding in the nearby ranges and, in the subsequent manhunt, he wounded two policemen and spent two weeks in hiding. Ultimately he was found by tracker Ted Egan; assisted by Sonny Woods and a young boy known only as William.

Later Benn was acquitted of the charges of murder, on the grounds of insanity as he had schizophrenia, and served 15 years in jail and 2 years in a mental health institution in Adelaide where he started painting on whatever he could find. Benn always remembered Albert Namatjira, who he once met with his "flash shirt, good hat and big truck" as an inspiration.

In 1981 Benn returned to Central Australia, to the regional centre Alice Springs, where he started working for Bindi Inc., an organisation established to provide employment opportunities, support and advocacy for people with a disability, where he worked constructing metal boxes.

In 2009, in his seventies and his health deteriorating, Benn and Catherine Peattie, started working on a book about his life and art and Benn was finally able to return to Harts Range, which he hadn't seen in 40 years. This book, Billy Benn, was released in 2011.

Achievements Benn's work is held in major national and international galleries and private collections and has risen to national prominence. Selected for Australian Art Collectors magazine's 2007 list of fifty most collectable artists.