Where: Macquarie Bank – Martin Place, Sydney
Artist: Daniel Boyd
Year: 2014

Born 1982, Cairns, Queensland. Lives and works Sydney.

Daniel Boyd reinterprets Eurocentric perspectives of Australian history, often appropriating images that have played significant roles in the formation and dissemination of that history.

Boyd has appropriated portraits of colonial figures such as Captain Cook, Governor Phillip and King George III and accessorised these heroes of empire with pirate eye patches, parrots and necklaces of skulls. Boyd has said, ‘questioning the romantic notions that surround the birth of Australia is primarily what influenced me to create this body of work. With our history being dominated by Eurocentric views, it is very important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to create dialogue from their own perspective to challenge the subjective history that has been created’.[1]

Boyd has exhibited his work nationally and internationally since 2005. Selected group exhibitions include All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice (2015); Moscow International Biennale for Young Arts: A Time for Dreams, Moscow (2014); Bungaree: The First Australian, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Lake Macquarie (2013); The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2012); One Caption Hides Another, Bétonsalon, Paris (2011); We Call Them Pirates Out Here, MCA, Sydney (2010); Contemporary Australia: Optimism, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008); and Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2007).

In 2010 Boyd was commissioned by the Queensland Government Public Art Fund to produce a major sculptural work, Seven Versions of the Sun, installed in Kangaroo Point Park, Brisbane.

Boyd’s work is held in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; as well as numerous private collections in Australia.

[1] Daniel Boyd, artist statement for Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2007, www.nga.gov.au/exhibition/niat07/Default.cfm?MnuID=2&GalID=33432 (accessed 3 February 2015).