Frontier Imaginaries contains two works by artist Ryan Presley which traverse many of the themes and histories he has been investigating for the past several years. The new painting Crown Land (to the ends of the earth) (2016) appropriates Christian iconography to address the ongoing issues of the Northern Territory intervention.

Blood money – 100 dollar note – dundalli commemorative (2010), is part of a series that Presley undertook which substitutes the heroes of white Australian monoculture commemorated on our national currency with the faces Aboriginal heroes, at once staking a claim for acknowledgement, and at the same time troubling the value system that underpins official Australian recognition of Indigenous people.

For this talk Presley will explore these works in depth, together with a broader discussion of his artistic practice, and the themes that have continued to impact his work.

Ryan Presley was born in 1987 in Alice Springs. He currently lives and works in Brisbane. His art practice is a reflection of his locale which he audits and critiques to mount a larger inquiry that interrogates the articulations of power.Presley’s work has been acquired by the Queensland University Museum of Art and Murdoch University’s art collections. He recently completed a PhD at the Queensland College of Art.