Following the exhibition at the IMA earlier this year, Ryan Presley: Prosperity is the first publication on the Meanjin/Brisbane-based artist’s practice. It features Presley’s own writing on the history of the Australian colony’s first currency—the holey dollar—with essays by Tina Baum, Daniel Browning, and Suvendrini Perera, exploring different manifestations of currency as a tool of the colonial project. Join Presley and the publication’s editor Madeleine King in conversation for the Brisbane launch of Prosperity.
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Ryan Presley was born in 1987 in Alice Springs, and currently lives and works in Brisbane. His father’s family is Marri Ngarr and originate from the Moyle River region in the Northern Territory. His mother’s family were Scandinavian immigrants to Australia. Presley’s work has been included in Trade Markings, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2018); 2016 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Darwin (2016); Frontier Imaginaries, IMA, Meanjin/Brisbane (2016); and 2016 TarraWarra Biennial. His work is held in public collections at UQ Art Museum, Murdoch University, Griffith University Art Collection, and Museum of Brisbane. He completed a PhD at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in 2016, and his current project Prosperity: An In-Depth Analysis of the Blood Money Series is supported by Griffith University’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme. His exhibition Ryan Presley: Prosperity was held at the IMA in 2018.
Madeleine King
is Assistant Director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, and is the editor and curator of Ryan Presley: Prosperity.
