In the 1990s, Gordon Bennett began referencing the work of Margaret Preston, one of Australia’s most celebrated modernist artists, in his works. Home Décor (After M. Preston #4) depicts an enlarged version of Preston’s small painting Aboriginal Design – Letter T: Mulga Shield Design c.1927 (Art Gallery of Western Australia). In his appropriation, Bennett critically engages with Preston, whose pursuit of a purely ‘Australian’ art saw her incorporate First Australian visual forms into her paintings, prints and designs for home furnishings, recognising its value but failing to obtain permission to use it. Seeking to highlight the cross-cultural issues surrounding the appropriation of Indigenous Australian art by a non-Indigenous artist, Bennett reproduced Preston’s appropriations in turn. In his own words, Bennett was interested in:

. . . the issues surrounding Preston’s advocacy of appropriating ‘Aboriginal art’ as a means to develop an ‘Indigenous’ style of Australian modern art, while, at the same time, being dismissive of Aboriginal cultures and peoples.