Untitled (TBOMB)

Daniel Boyd has created this work of commanding presence from an unassuming subject, a family picnic. Boyd, a descendant of the Kudjila and Gangalu people of central Queensland and of Pacific Islander people, worked from a photograph taken before his birth to depict the occasion of a birthday party on the beach near his family’s home. To create this scene, filled with children and adults surrounded by balloons in the colours of the Aboriginal flag, he has dotted transparent glue across the canvas and then painted over the dots with synthetic polymer paint. This technique recalls the method used by nineteenth-century pointillist painters to create an image by using dots of colour. While Boyd’s image of celebration is universal, his depiction of his family provokes us to rethink eurocentric norms, as his family is Aboriginal rather than European. By positioning his family on equal footing with an ‘average’ European family, the familiarity of this scene encourages us to visualise our shared human experiences and histories.

Daniel Boyd’s diptych Untitled (TBOMB) is the first work by an Aboriginal artist to be acquired through the James and Diana Ramsay Fund, which is also the supporter of the Ramsay Art Prize.