No sleep till Dreamtime

Reko Rennie is a Kamilaroi artist based in Melbourne whose works explore issues of Aboriginal identity within an urban environment. His commanding works are largely biographical and combine the iconography of his Kamilaroi heritage with stylistic elements of graffiti and street art.
Rennie grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne and has strong family connections to Kamilaroi country in northern New South Wales. He has had no formal training, but has refined his skills through years of work as a graffiti artist. Rennie employs a variety of mediums and forms from spray painted installations, to neon signage, cast metal sculptures and prints on paper.

He is most recognised for his large scale site-specific works with his trademark use of the repeated diamond pattern in hard-edge form and in the brilliant colours synonymous with street art. These diamond forms are drawn from the dendroglyphs (carved trees) found in Kamilaroi country.

''No Sleep Till Dreamtime' takes its cue from the Beastie Boys single 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn', released on their album 'Licensed to Ill' in 1986. As an urban Indigenous Australian, my work often references the hip-hop and graffiti subcultures that were influential on my artistic practice in my formative years. In this work I have merged traditional Kamilaroi diamond-shaped designs, hand drawn symbols and repetitive patterning to subvert romantic ideologies of Aboriginal identity.'
Reko Rennie 2014