A tribute exhibition of works by Danny Riley, brings together the major remaining works from Danny's short, but significant painting career. This little known body of work is showing at Artereal Gallery in March 2008.
Danny, the son of Ginger Riley's youngest brother, only started painting after Ginger passed away, but he had observed his uncle at work and began to formulate his own style. He spent as much time as he could in Limmen Bight country. Here he discovered some unpainted canvases of his uncle's and started his own distinctive paintings.
Growing up around Borroloola on the McArthur River, Danny spent most of his life as a stockman on the cattle stations south of Arnhem Land; among them Greenbank and Bing Bong and others on the Barkly Tablelands. When station work stopped, the Riley and Hammer families moved back to their land in the Limmen Bight country and named their outstation Maria Lagoon after the lagoon there. This lagoon is central in Danny's paintings. In the Gulf country, four clans, two fresh water and two salt, make up the Yanuywa. Danny, of the Mara people was salt water and creatures of the sea, crayfish, stingray and barracuda, are in all of his paintings.
Borroloola opened its own art centre, Waralungku Arts, in 2003 and Danny began to paint there with artists including, Reggie and Stewart Hoosen, Norman Kingsley, Thelma Dixon and Dinny and Nancy McDinny . His early work was not strong but the indications of a unique style were evident.
In late 2005 Peter Callinan, Art Centre Co-ordinator, brought some paintings from Borroloola to a Sydney art fair. A group exhibition, curated by Anna La Fontaine for Australia 's Outback Gallery at Darling Harbour was arranged for mid 2006 with four of these artists. Danny Riley's paintings became the centre-piece for the exhibition. His unique and striking works, which sold out, received wide acclaim from local and international collectors.
A solo exhibition was planned following his success in Sydney . Danny had embarked on new work which was more consistent and showing greater confidence. Great things were anticipated. He painted a mural on the front wall of the Art Centre and decorated the Centre's new 4WD troop carrier. Sadly, towards the end of 2006, Danny fell ill and died in the first week of 2007. In accordance with 'sorry business' practice these public artworks were painted out and the solo exhibition delayed.
In consultation with the Mabunji community through Peter Callinan of Waralungku Arts, permission was given by Danny's closest relative, Violet Hammer (the wife of Ginger Riley's other brother), to continue with planning for this solo exhibition of works that are the final and most significant of this short painting career.
As a traditional dancer involved in ceremony and law business, Danny's major paintings often include ceremonial objects. Although his paintings contain recurring lagoon and hill motifs they are unlike the 'topographical' landscape style of his uncle. Danny's paintings have a strong design element with the animals swirling on the horizon-less ground, creating a powerful rhythmic tension. Like Ginger, he uses stippling in the background fields. These marks, by following the contours and paths of the sea creatures he paints, intensify movement within the work. However in some paintings, a particular area can show careful parallel lines of dotting, as if this extra concentration indicates the presence of something of importance.
Unusually for indigenous painters, Danny Riley signs the front of his canvases in the way western artists do for authenticating their works; emulating a practice adopted by Ginger in 1993 after traveling overseas for the first time and seeing master works at the National and Tate Galleries in Britain .
Danny Riley: Limmen Bight Country is at Artereal Gallery 747 Darling Street Rozelle NSW 2039, from 28 February to 29 March 2008 .
