Reko Rennie: No Sleep Till Dreamtime

Overview

If Taylor Square is involved in your daily commute, you’re probably familiar with the work of Reko Rennie. Now part of the urban texture of Darlinghurst, Always has been, always will be is the unmissable Flinders Street mural. Glowing with lurid pink and bright blue, this work showcases Rennie’s trademark use of geometric diamonds and his neon palette. Echoing the traditional markings of the Kamilaroi people, he combines his Indigenous heritage with a street art aesthetic.

In association with blackartsprojects, No Sleep Till Dreamtime is Rennie’s latest solo exhibition. Spread across Chalk Horse and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, it continues to interrogate how Aboriginality is framed in an urban context. Unlike the flat colours and neon lettering of his public projects, this exhibition shares a bigger vocabulary of symbols and explores more complex processes of art-making.

In addition to his usual repertoire of spray cans and stencils, Rennie’s technique of hand pressing metallic foil onto boards creates an uneven shine. This evidence of application draws attention to the finer details of these works. In some works, the iconic diamond pattern is printed underneath, intensifying the creases and scratches on the surface. In other works, the pattern is overlaid, as if attempting to wrestle down its unruly consistency.

Ideas of sovereignty are prevalent throughout Rennie’s practice, often represented by the repetition of a crown, a star and the Aboriginal flag. These symbols reflect on Australia’s original inhabitants, commemorating a forgotten monarchy. Drawn individually, they look like one fluid gesture, almost like a carefully meditated (but modernised) Zen painting. When combined, they are obsessively repeated like a wallpaper pattern, becoming a kind of iconographic cursive.

Interestingly, the crown is also a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat, the poetic pauper turned art world superstar. Rennie’s introduction to graffiti culture was guided by the New York underground of the '70s and '80s, particularly with the coalescing of hip hop, street art and post-punk. In fact, the title of the exhibition takes its cue from the Beastie Boys’ 1986 single 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn'. Rennie’s cross-fading of vivid colours seems to convey a touch of nostalgia for this era. There's also his use of the hard-edged lightning bolt, which hints at a more local AC/DC flavour.

Both eye candy and political punch, Rennie's works pull together symbols from his ancestral tribe, hip hop subcultures and street art gods. It's a very autobiographical practice. He seeks to carve out a strong Aboriginal presence in urban environments, moving beyond one-dimensional portraits of Indigenous Australia.