Michael Riley completed a one-year course in photography at the Tin Sheds in Sydney (1983), and then refined his skills working as a technician in the Photography Department at Sydney College of the Arts. Along with several other prominent Indigenous artists, he helped establish the Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-op in Sydney in 1987. Riley’s photographic practice traversed various genres, including portraiture, social documentary, photo-collage and conceptual photography. Across all these genres, Riley demonstrated a particular interest in the identity of Indigenous Australians in a post-colonial context.
A common place: portraits of Moree Murries is a series of portraits showing people from two Aboriginal missions at Moree in northern New South Wales. Apparently inspired by the work of American photographer Irving Penn, Riley used a canvas backdrop to set up an outdoor studio and invited members of the community to have their portraits taken. The title of the series alludes to the outdoor studio being a ‘common place’ for the two communities to come together.
2023
Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
