MELBOURNE ART FAIR

Following his landmark retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, Reko Rennie continues to assert his position as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists with a dynamic new series. Through his distinctive visual language, Rennie creates images of faces, gestures, objects and symbols that speak to Indigenous strength, success, and self-determination. Each canvas serves as a site of cultural reclamation and celebration, where traditional motifs merge with urban contemporary art practices. His presentation is completed by a luminous neon installation and two commanding totem sculptures, expanding the conversation beyond the painted surface.

In dialogue with Rennie’s work, Harriette Bryant presents a compelling installation of 26 paintings that emerge from a complex personal history mirroring broader narratives of displacement and reclamation in Australian history. Born in Amata in the APY Lands, Bryant’s journey through various communities and missions has profoundly shaped her artistic vision and cultural understanding. Working with transformed domestic objects – from silver serving trays to decorative coasters – Bryant subverts the familiar language of colonial domesticity.

These found materials, once symbols of European settlement and propriety, become powerful vehicles for storytelling in her hands. In this presentation of more than twenty-five individual elements, Bryant weaves together family storylines and cultural memory, her alterations to these household items speaking simultaneously to displacement and reclamation. Through both humor and gravity, she offers new ways of understanding the Indigenous experience of Australian history, each transformed object carrying layers of personal and collective meaning.