Paint: a medium deeply rooted in art history, whose value is all too hastily disregarded in our technology-driven era. At Pearl Lam Galleries, tucked away in Hong Kong’s glorious, historic downtown Pedder Building, is one reason to be excited about painting—namely, “Straight White Male,” Australian artist Ben Quilty’s first solo exhibition in the Asian metropolis. The show does not disappoint. Fourteen fleshy, captivating portraits and landscapes consume the gallery space, demanding attention from viewers while drawing them deep into Quilty’s world of canvases, which are covered in thick strokes of glossy oil paint and encompass a lush palette of colors.

The portraits are—literally—of straight, white men. Specifically, they include Private Phil Butler, an Australian military veteran who, upon returning from the Vietnam War, was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and left his family for the streets. The portraits also include that of Quilty’s cousin, a photojournalist based in Paris, and Quilty’s father, who is a recurring subject in the artist’s portraiture work and a figure he credits for his interest in Australian masculinity.

These are, however, not happy portraits. A repeating element is the depiction of what appears to be a severed head. The expressions on the faces are emotionally loaded with angst and a sense of gloom. The head in Private Phillip Butler 7ARU, no.2 (2014) appears to be in the process of transforming­ into a cup, with a mug handle growing out of its side. In another work, The Photojournalist (AQ) (2014), the head is depicted with all the colors of the rainbow, but also grossly disfigured and in a mid-metamorphic state. Quilty doesn’t shy away from painting himself either. Straight White Male, Self Portrait (2014) portrays the artist in the same, grotesque state of metamorphosis as his other subjects, with his upside-down head detached from his torso. In 2011, the artist spent a month in Afghanistan as an official war artist; and his portraits reflect his observations of (and empathy for) soldiers returning from war, who are left to face the scars of trauma and uncertainty of their future.

“Straight White Male” extends Quilty’s exploration of masculinity’s darker side, the forms of masculinity embraced by war, and dangerous, coming-of-age initiation rites drawn from his own experience growing up in the outer suburbs of northwestern Sydney. He admits to partaking voluntarily in the careless and risky behavior often attributed to young Australian men, which he maintains is an inescapable rite of passage, influenced by alcohol and drug-induced recklessness. This rather somber image is reflected in Pacific Self Portrait (2014). Part of Quilty’s new “Pacific Island/Ocean” series of paintings, it is inspired by his many visits to Bali, where he has been mentoring Myuran Sukumaran, a convicted Australian drug smuggler currently on death row. Bali is also the party hotspot for many young Australians engaging in the rash, risk-taking behavior that Quilty explores in his work. In Pacific Self Portrait, which is made in the artist’s Rorschach-inspired style, the tropical island of Bali is both a paradise and a hell.

Quilty has employed his monoprint technique since 2007. For him it symbolizes the depth of intellectual inquiry in his paintings and his encounters with conflicting sides of war, masculinity and histories of colonialism and racism. Inspired by the Rorschach test—a psychological tool that analyzes a person’s interpretation of inkblots to determine their personal and emotional characteristics—Quilty’s monoprint approach produces a copy (albeit a flawed and damaged one) of another image that he created, through the action of pressing a painted canvas onto a clean one.