Archie Moore: MĪAL

Next date: Saturday, 10 October 2026 | 12:00 AM

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Archie Moore is a celebrated Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist whose practice is embedded in the politics of identity, racism and language systems. Mīal is a conceptual self portrait that counters expectations of what a self portrait should be. The title, the Bigambul language word for Aboriginal man, announces this group of geometric monochrome paintings as representative of the artist.

Mīal probes the politics and codification of skin colour, and the racist historical practice of classifying skin tone to determine the supposed legitimacy and proof of a person’s ‘Aboriginality’. Each painting relates to a part of the artist’s body and is named in his Ancestral languages. The colours of the glossy automotive paint were generated by the artist scanning parts of his body, then converting them to the Pantone colour scale.

Supported by the National Portrait Gallery, Mīal will be exhibited at regional venues nationally in 2025 and 2026.

Artist Biography

Born in Toowoomba, Queensland in 1970, Archie Moore is a Kamilaroi and Bigambul man with British and Scottish heritage. Moore’s conceptual practice encompasses a range of media, including installation, sculpture and photography. Tracing personal memory and familial histories, Moore interrogates identity through the politics of skin, language revival, notions of home and genealogy. A throughline in his work over three decades is the legacy of colonisation and its ongoing impact on First Nations peoples.

His work was included in the 20th Biennale of Sydney in 2016, and in 2018 Griffith University Art Museum presented the solo exhibition, Archie Moore 1970–2018. In the same year Moore undertook the major public art commission, United Neytions, a partnership between the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Sydney Airport. The 28 large flags now installed at Sydney Airport’s International Terminal respond to the codified representations of identity and nationhood, and the way national histories can be built upon falsehoods.

In April 2024, Moore became the first Australian artist to win the Venice Biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion award for best national participation for his solo presentation in the Australia Pavilion, kith and kin, in which he continues his deep work on language revival, identity and familial connections.

This exhibition is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.