Michael Riley (artist)


Michael Riley was an Australian Indigenous photographer and film-maker, and co-founder of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. A significant figure in Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, Riley's work is held by many public art institutions including the National Gallery of Australia.

Life and work

Riley was born in 1960 in Dubbo, central New South Wales, 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. Riley moved to Sydney in 1976, and attended a photography course at the Tin Sheds, University of Sydney. He subsequently worked as a technician in the photography department of the Sydney College of the Arts, where he continued to study.
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 flyblown and cloud.
Many of Riley's photographs and films explore Indigenous identity, experience and politics, including Malangi: A day in the life of a bark painter, Poison, Blacktracker, and Tent Boxers.
Riley's work was amongst that of eight Australian Indigenous artists selected for an architectural commission for the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

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