Daniel Boyd

Learning resource

Bearing Witness

Daniel Boyd
Kudjla/Gangalu peoples
born 1982 Cairns, Queensland
lives and works Sydney, New South Wales

Speak your mind

Talking points or provocations to unpack the works through discussion and/or contemplation:

  • Can you see what is depicted or happening in Daniel Boyd’s works?
  • Why or how do the monotone colours change the meaning of the works?
  • Discuss the impact of Captain Cook’s ‘discovery’ of Australia.

Senior options

  • What works are Boyd’s based on? Why do you think he appropriated or reconstructed them?
  • Why does the artist use the style of pointillism?
  • How do history paintings control historic narrative?

Get to work

Creative making suggestions that highlight key concepts:

  • Recreate an historic Australian painting in monotone colours.

Think it through

Ideas to aid you in the creation of works:

  • Consider how the painting changes without the use of primary colours.
  • How can you use white, grey and black to express light, shadow and tone?
  • Discover the Indigenous names in your local area for everyday items such as stone, plants, seed, fruit, hill, valley, river, cave etc.

Senior options

  • Think about the effects an historic moment has had on different groups in Australia. How could you highlight this in your work?
  • Can you use a different style, like pointillism, to change the meaning of your work?
  • Research a place of cultural significance to the Indigenous people of your region. Find out more about cultural practices that would have taken place before colonial interventions. Talk about the ways your community could honour the legacy of the traditional custodians with a site-specific installation.

Places to go

Links for more information about the artist:

Talk the talk

Glossary of words in the education resource and artist statement:

  • perception: the act or faculty of perceiving, or apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding             
  • opaque: not transparent or translucent; impenetrable to light; not allowing light to pass through
  • amnesia: loss of a large block of interrelated memories; complete or partial loss of memory caused by brain injury, shock
  • pointillism: a theory and technique developed by the neo-impressionists, based on the principle that juxtaposed dots of pure colour, such as blue and yellow, are optically mixed into the resulting hue, green, by the viewer
  • monotone: sameness of tone or colour
  • appropriate: to take to or for oneself; take possession of

 

Search for works by this artist in the national collection.