Daniel Boyd

Daniel Boyd (born 1982) is an Australian contemporary artist working in painting, sculpture and installation. He won the Art Gallery of New South Wales' Bulgari Art Award in 2014 and was a finalist for the 2022 Archibald Prize.

Early life Boyd was born in 1982 in Cairns, Queensland. He is an Indigenous Australian with Kudjala, Ghungalu, Wanggeriburra, Wakka Wakka, Gubbi Gubbi, Kuku Yalanji, Yuggera and Bundjalung – as well as Ni-Vanuatu – heritage. He began drawing as a child, and sold illustrations and paintings of the Great Barrier Reef to tourists. He went on to study at the Australian National University School of Art & Design, graduating in 2005.

Art career

His work satirises the "Eurocentric" view of colonial Australian history, including depictions of James Cook, Joseph Banks, Arthur Phillip and King George III as pirates. While his early work primarily consisted of oil portraits, much of his later work incorporates "dot-like lenses" of different materials affixed to canvas. He has also exhibited at the Natural History Museum in London, the Venice Biennale, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and the Museu Picasso.

Boyd's artwork features on the cover of 3%'s 2024 album Kill the Dead

Basketball Boyd is a former semi-professional basketball player, having played in the shooting guard position for the Cairns Marlins in the early 2000s.