Patternation was a collaborative installation exhibition by artist Reko Rennie, which was curated by Stephen Gilchrist. This site-specific installation required Rennie to spray paint an entire gallery of the museum and stencilling two alcoves. The title Patternation refers to not just the repeated geometric patterns that often appear in Rennie’s work, but also the rhetoricized and contrived “patter” of Australian national discourse which promises so much, yet enacts so little.
Rennie visited in January 2011 to complete his site-specific installations. He also undertook a collaborative mural with Native American artist Frank Buffalo Hyde.
Reko Rennie is a Kamilaroi Melbourne-based visual artist who uses stenciling on public and private walls to question notions of cultural invisibility, national identity and public surveillance. Sampling Aboriginal iconography with secular imagery, his work embodies the easy duality of contemporary Aboriginality. He has completed installations around the world, including the exterior of the Sydney Opera House, and his paintings are held in numerous private and public collections globally.
Frank Buffalo Hyde is a Onondaga/Nez Perce artist who is recognized for breaking through the established boundaries of what Native American art “should look like.” He is based in Santa Fe and his work is held in private and public collections in the United States, including the Smithsonian.
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