Michael Riley (1960-2004) was one of the most important contemporary Australian Indigenous visual artists of the past two decades. His contribution to the urban-based Indigenous visual arts industry was substantial and his film and video work challenged non-Indigenous perceptions of Indigenous experience, particularly among the most disenfranchised communities in the eastern region of Australia. He worked with Indigenous people from communities throughout rural and remote regions of Australia and brought a singularly Indigenous visual language to the forefront of international contemporary art.

Riley's work is not social-documentary but draws on a multiplicity of influences--European and North American film-making, international fashion and design, and Indigenous and European spirituality and its contradictions.