Richard Walley

Richard Walley OAM (b. 1953) is a performer, artist, writer and Indigenous rights advocate. A Nyoongar man, he began working with the Aboriginal Housing Board and the Aboriginal Legal Service in Western Australia in the 1970s. In 1978, he co-founded the Middar Aboriginal Theatre with friends including Ernie Dingo, with whom he devised and performed the very first 'Welcome to Country' in 1976. During the 1980s Walley was involved in stage and television productions, and since 1996 has released several recordings, among them Two tribes (2003), which blends traditional sounds with rap and hip hop. The 1991 NAIDOC Aboriginal Artist of the Year, Walley is a former Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council. In recent years he has worked as a cultural awareness advisor to BHP and other organisations.

Julie Dowling, an artist of Badimaya, Irish and Scottish Catholic heritage, draws on diverse traditions including European portraiture and Christian icons, mural painting, dotting and Indigenous Australian iconography. Her painting of a kangaroo-skin-cloaked Walley depicts him as a respected elder with his beloved didgeridoo and incorporates ochre sourced from Yamatji country.

Commissioned with funds provided by Neil Archibald and Alan R. Dodge AM, Brandon and Angela Munro, Dr Walter Ong and Graeme Marshall 2015
© Julie Dowling/Copyright Agency, 2024