REKO RENNIE
b. 1974, AustraliaReko Rennie (b.1974, Naarm/Melbourne) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores his Aboriginal identity through contemporary media. Through his art, Rennie provokes discussion surrounding Indigenous culture in contemporary urban environments. Largely autobiographical, his commanding works combine the iconography of his Kamilaroi heritage, merging traditional diamond-shaped designs, hand-drawn symbols and repetitive patterning to subvert romantic ideologies of Aboriginal identity.
Rennie has exhibited across Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe, and his work is held in major collections, including Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Kluge-Ruhe Institute, University of Virginia, USA, Koorie Heritage Trust, the Wesfarmers Collection and the New Contemporary Art Museum, Nanjing, China.
In 2024 the National Gallery of Victoria presented a major retrospective of Rennie’s work titled REKOSPECTIVE: The Art of Reko Rennie and he was awarded GQ’s Artist of the Year. In 2023, Rennie was awarded the Mordant Family-Australia Council Affiliated Fellowship and undertook a residency at the American Academy in Rome, Italy. He has also been awarded significant commissions, including the sixth Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (2023), the landmark public artwork Where Eels Lie Down in Parramatta (2023), and the Artbank + ACMI Commission, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (2019).
Text courtesy Ames Yavuz.
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