“Liam Benson’s series of works, featuring photography and video, is perhaps the most unfettered and certainly the most optimistic of responses to this post (Cronulla) riot Australia. Referencing a number of pop-cultural in uences including Kylie and the Bra Boys, Benson’s video I Believe in You is a disarming and highly charming treatise on love and acceptance. Performing Minogue’s song of the same name, Benson stares directly into the camera, almost Christ-like with his bare chest, blue eyes and long curly hair, wearing only a green glitter garland-like tattoo that reads ‘I BELIEVE IN YOU’. With an unwavering, entreating stare and a twinkle in his eye, Benson, a patriotic gay Australian, really does believe in us. 

In his other work I Love the Shire, a series of free postcards of Benson, in full ocker drag regalia, fake tan, fake tits, blonde hair and an ‘I e the Shire’ t-shirt, poses on the beach draped in the Australian flag. Benson isn’t necessarily being provocative, he’s certainly not being cynical and it’s this mix of cheery faith and drag-meets-ocker male fantasy that makes his work so effective.”

Our Lucky Country - (Still Different) Jo Higgins, Review Artlink Vol 28 no 1, 2008 

Liam Benson, I Believe in You, 2007, single channel digital video, sound, 3.30 min. Courtesy the artist and Artereal Gallery.