Reko Rennie: OA_RR

Reko Rennie’s OA_RR, 2016_17 was a three-channel video work with a soundtrack by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

In the video, Reko made an emotional journey back to Country in a reclaimed 1973 Rolls-Royce Corniche which he hand painted in his signature camouflage.

The Rolls Royce's geometric pattern referenced the traditional diamond shaped patterns of the Kamilaroi people. An exaggerated camouflage combined with this pattern to promote visibility of identity.

OA_RR (which stands for Original Aboriginal Reko Rennie), is made in honour of the artist’s grandmother. The central Rolls Royce referenced Australian pastoralists of the early 1900s for whom the car was a symbol of wealth and privilege and who drove to church in their Sunday finest at a time where many Aboriginal women, men and children were enslaved on their properties, pastoral stations, and missions.

Travelling on Country and thinking about his grandmother, Rennie drove donuts, or circle-work, into the red earth as the sun sets, the markings simultaneously recalled urban car culture and traditional Kamilaroi sand engravings.

About the Artist

Reko Rennie is an interdisciplinary Australian artist who explores personal and political narratives through the lens of his Aboriginal (Kamilaroi) heritage, alongside broader cultural themes around power, identity, memory and history. Rennie’s distinctive visual language negotiates a hybrid form of contested binaries ¬– visible and invisible, public and private, urban and traditional – to provoke discussion of cultural and social visibility in a contemporary environment. A commitment to lush, bold colours, refined technique and slick presentation grounds Rennie’s practice in the present, confidently affirming the ongoing presence and self-determination of Aboriginal identity.

Informed by 1970–80s American graffiti culture, Rennie started his practice as a teenage graffiti artist, finding his voice on the surfaces of Melbourne’s city buildings, trains and laneways. Since his first solo shows in 2009, Rennie has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally, including in the United States of America, China, France, Italy and Germany. He has been included in many important curated museum exhibitions and biennials in Australia such as MY COUNTRY, I STILL CALL AUSTRALIA HOME: Contemporary Art from Black Australia, Queensland Art Gallery (2013); Sovereignty, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2016); Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017); and 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free State, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2022). In 2020, Rennie received the ACMI + Artbank Commission, creating a three-channel video installation titled What Do We Want?