Michael Riley (6 Jan 1960 – August 2004) was an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...

photographer and

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

, and co-founder of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. A significant figure in

contemporary Indigenous Australian art Contemporary Indigenous Australian art (also known as contemporary Aboriginal Australian art) is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded a ...

, Riley's work is held by many public art institutions, including the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

Early life and education

Riley was born on 6 January 1960 in Dubbo, central

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, to Allen Riley and Dorothy, née Wright. His early years were spent on the Talbragar Aboriginal Reserve with his parents and siblings David, Wendy and Carol."Up in the sky, behind the clouds", in Croft, Brenda (ed.), ''Michael Riley: Sights Unseen'',

, Canberra, 2006. His mother grew up on one of the two Aboriginal missions in Moree.

Career

Riley moved to Sydney in 1976, and attended a photography course at the

Tin Sheds The Tin Sheds was the common name of the Sydney University Art Workshop was an Australian art workshop in Sydney, New South Wales, founded in 1969. Its name lives on in the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, ...

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

. He subsequently worked as a technician in the photography department of the Sydney College of the Arts, where he continued to study. In 1986, his work, comprising five portraits of Aboriginal women, was included in the first exhibition of Indigenous photography at the Aboriginal Artists Gallery in Sydney. In the same year, along with nine other Sydney artists founded the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. Along with working at Boomalli, Riley worked at

Film Australia Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under diff ...

, making his first two documentary films: ''Boomalli: Five Artists'' (1988) and ''Dreamings'' (1988), the latter to accompany an exhibition of Aboriginal art at the Asia Society galleries in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 1990 he created a series of photographs of people from the two missions of his mother's hometown, Moree, called ''A common place: Portraits of Moree Murries''. Many of the subjects were relatives of Riley. Riley set up an outdoor studio in Moree and invited community members to participate. The exhibition was shown first at the Hogarth Gallery in Sydney, and then travelled to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, where it was shown in 1991. The large prints from the exhibition were presented to the Moree Plains Gallery (now BAMM: Bank Art Museum Moree). The State Library of New South Wales has digitised images of the photographs. In 1993 it acquired 10 smaller prints from the Boomalai Art Collective, printed and signed by Riley, and in 2016 acquired five further archival prints to complete the series, at which time it mounted an exhibition of them in the Amaze Gallery. The exhibition included a photo of

Lyall Munro Snr Lyall Munro Snr (30 September 1931– 21 May 2020), also known as Uncle Lyall Munro Senior, was an Aboriginal Australian activist, leader, and elder, especially known for his advocacy of Indigenous land rights. He was the husband of Carmine ...

and his wife Carmine Munro. In 1996 Riley was commissioned by the

Museum of Sydney The Museum of Sydney is a historical collection and exhibit, built on the ruins of the house of New South Wales' first Governor, Arthur Phillip, on the present-day corner of Phillip and Bridge Street, Sydney. Description The original house, ...

to make ''Eora'', a permanent video installation celebrating the

Eora people The Eora (''Yura'') are an Aboriginal Australian people of New South Wales. Eora is the name given by the earliest European settlers to a group of Aboriginal people belonging to the clans along the coastal area of what is now known as the Sy ...

of the Sydney region. His film ''Empire'' (1997) looks at environmental destruction as a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

for the impact of

colonisation Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...

on his culture.

Themes

Riley's photographs range widely, but with an emphasis on portraiture, and on symbolic, sometimes surreal images. His parents were churchgoers, and Riley appropriated the iconography of his "creepy" religious experiences, particularly in projects such as ''Fly Blown'' (1998) and the

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various name ...

series ''Cloud'' (2000). Many of Riley's photographs and films explore Indigenous identity, experience and politics, including ''Malangi: A day in the life of a bark painter'' (1991), ''Poison'' (1991), ''Blacktracker'' (1996), and ''Tent Boxers'' (2000).

Recognition and posthumous exhibitions

Riley's work was among that of eight Australian Indigenous artists selected for an architectural commission for the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris in 2006. Riley’s first digital series, ''Cloud'', 2000, was included in Photograhica Australis at ARCO in Spain, the Fourth

Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is an art museum located within the Queensland Cultural Centre in the South Bank precinct of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. GOMA, which opened on 2 December 2006, is the largest ...

at the

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

, and the 2003

Festival of Sydney Sydney Festival is a major arts festival in Australia's largest city, Sydney that runs for three weeks every January, since it was established in 1977. The festival program features in excess of 100 events from local and international artists an ...

. In November–December 2016, his work was included in an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of

NAISDA The NAISDA Dance College (usually referred to as simply NAISDA) is a performing arts training college based in Kariong, New South Wales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. It was established as the Aboriginal Islander ...

at Carriageworks in Redfern. ''Naya Wa Yugali'' ("We Dance" in

Darkinyung language Darkinjung (Darrkinyung; many other spellings; see below) is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Darkinjung people. While no audio recordings of the language survive, several researchers have compiled wordlists an ...

Death and legacy

He died in August 2004, aged 44.

Collections

* Art Gallery of New South Wales *

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...

* Dubbo Regional Art Gallery * Macarthur Institute of Higher Education * BAMM: Bank Art Museum Moree *

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia, in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''National Muse ...

* State Library of New South Wales * Sydney International Airport *

Selected filmography

*Boomalli: Five Koorie Artists (1988) *Breakthrough series: Alice (1988) *Dreamings: The art of Aboriginal Australia (1988) *Frances (1990) *Malangi: A day in the life of a bark painter (1991) *Poison (1991) *Quest for country (1993) *Welcome to my Koori world (1993) *A passage through the aisles (1994) *Kangaroo dancer (1994) *Eora (1995) *Blacktracker (1996) *The masters (1996) *Empire (1997) *I don't wanna be a bludger (1999) *Tent boxers (2000)

References

External links

*
Michael Riley
at the Commercial Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Riley, Michael 1960 births 2004 deaths Australian Aboriginal artists People from Dubbo