Oro robado (stolen gold) Installation Archibald Prize Exhibition 2023, MPRG
Oro robado (stolen gold)
Ink on vinyl sticker
The gold mask depicted was made around 1000-1500
CE by the Quimbaya, one of the many Indigenous peoples of South America. Now held in the British Museum, it is illustrated in Michael Grey's canonical text
Pre-Columbian art [1978]. Oro robado takes from Searle's ongoing series Stolen gold, which explores Grey's text along with Pre-Columbian artefacts as a means to further understand his own diasporic history and identity as an Australian-Colombian.
'Oro robado' is a statement of strength and questioning.
For the artist stolen gold refers to both the literal and metaphoric gold taken by colonisation.
