Michael Riley

Michael Riley (6 Jan 1960 – August 2004) was an Aboriginal Australian photographer and filmmaker, 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. Early life and education Riley was born on 6 January 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. His mother grew up on one of the two Aboriginal missions in Moree. Career 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. In 1986, his work, comprising five portraits of Aboriginal women, was included in the first exhibition of Indigenous photography at the Aboriginal Artists Gallery in Sydney. In the same year, along with nine other Sydney artists founded the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative. Along with working at Boomalli, Riley worked at Film Australia, making his first two documentary films: Boomalli: Five Artists (1988) and Dreamings (1988), the latter to accompany an exhibition of Aboriginal art at the Asia Society galleries in New York City.