Free Fall

‘This series, titled "Free Fall", was heavily influenced by American realist George Bellows’ early 20th-century boxing series. Where Bellows looked to boxing, the premier bloodsport of his age, Quilty has turned to the modern phenomenon of the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC). Looking back on Quilty’s work in recent years, his ongoing exploration of heavily abstracted, tortured anatomies, perhaps it was inevitable these figures, or their kin, would end up in a fighting pit, aka the ‘UFC Octagon’. Crucially, while studying Bellows, Quilty revisited the iconic images taken by photojournalist (and cousin) Andrew Quilty of the 2005 Cronulla riots. Here, the beach and the Octagon are corresponding zones, symbolically potent places steeped in friction, violence and ritual.’ – from the Foreword by Milena Stojanovska