Two Of Australia’s Leading Artists Are Coming Together For A Major New Exhibition
A powerful journey home
By Kiri Johnston | 10th September 2026Archie Moore and Daniel Boyd will explore memory, identity and the journey home at Ngununggula in the Southern Highlands.
Two of Australia’s leading contemporary artists will come together for a major new exhibition exploring the places, histories and memories that make us who we are. Opening at Ngununggula in the NSW Southern Highlands this October, Stories from a small country town pairs the work of Archie Moore and Daniel Boyd for an examination of identity, belonging and the experience of leaving home before finding your way back.
Curated by acclaimed Bundjalung curator, writer and cultural leader Djon Mundine OAM, the exhibition has been almost two decades in the making. Moore, a Kamilaroi and Bigambul man, grew up in the small Queensland town of Tara, while Boyd’s Kudjala, Ghungalu, Wangerriburra, Wakka Wakka, Gubbi Gubbi, Kuku Yalanji, Yuggera and Bundjalung heritage, along with his ni-Vanuatu ancestry, connects his story to Queensland’s sugar-cane history.
Although their practices take distinctly different forms, both artists draw on personal histories to examine cultural identity and challenge established narratives.
“They’re the two most deeply thinking Aboriginal artists in their practice,” Mundine says. “In considering both artists, the question becomes, ‘How do you create your own life in the end? How do you create your own identity?’”
A new installation by Daniel Boyd
Born in Cairns in 1982 and now living and working in Sydney, Boyd works across painting, photography, sculpture, installation and moving image. His work considers who has been given the authority to record history, often reinterpreting colonial accounts of Australia and the Pacific through a contemporary First Nations lens. Boyd’s family history also informs his practice. His ni-Vanuatu ancestry is connected to Queensland’s sugar-cane industry, while his broader heritage spans several Aboriginal Nations across Queensland and northern New South Wales.
For the exhibition, Boyd will transform Ngununggula’s gallery windows with a site-specific installation using his signature dot motif. Black adhesive vinyl will be applied across the glass, filtering the way visitors see both the gallery and the landscape beyond it. Boyd’s recurring dots act as lenses, partially revealing and obscuring the images beneath them. The technique references dark matter in the universe, becoming a metaphor for the people, stories and perspectives left unacknowledged by dominant versions of history.
The presentation will also include works from Boyd’s Up in Smoke Tour series and The Mirror Stage, alongside a work from his No Beard series, which recasts an 18th-century portrait of Captain James Cook by presenting him as a pirate.
Archie Moore’s portrait of his father
Born in Toowoomba in 1970 and raised in Tara, Moore is a Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist now based in Brisbane. His multidisciplinary practice spans painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, video and scent, with his work often returning to family, language, skin, genealogy, racism and home.
Childhood memories and family histories have become particularly important throughout Moore’s work. Instead of relying solely on conventional portraiture, he has used domestic architecture, personal belongings, family trees and even remembered smells to explore the people and places that have informed his life. Among Moore’s featured works at Ngununggula will be Remnants of My Father, first developed for the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art in collaboration with precious metals group Pallion.
The installation presents a portrait of Moore’s father, Stanley Moore, without relying on a conventional likeness. Instead, audiences encounter him through the belongings and documents he left behind, including a hand-drawn map of a gold deposit, war medals, a licence to possess valuable minerals and dentures finished with a gold cap. Together, the objects trace a deeply personal history of ambition, memory and disappointment. As Moore describes it, the work speaks to “(false) hope, (empty) promises, (thin) veneers and (pipe) dreams”.
The exhibition will also feature Moore’s Mīal series, a fractured self-portrait made up of 34 monochrome paintings based on the skin tones of his own body, alongside Blood Fraction, selections from his early Comic Paintings and Bannertree floor — a recreation of the linoleum pattern inside his childhood home in Tara. Moore received the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2024 Venice Biennale for kith and kin, his monumental exploration of First Nations histories in the Australian Pavilion.
Presented within the landscaped grounds of Retford Park, Stories from a small country town offers a compelling reason to plan a Southern Highlands escape this spring or summer, and a rare opportunity to experience two vital Australian practices in conversation.
Stories from a small country town will be presented at Ngununggula from 31 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. The gallery is open daily from 10am to 4pm, with the exhibition launch taking place from 5pm on 30 October.
The biographical details for Boyd are supported by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Marian Goodman Gallery.
