Dale Collier

Conceptual artist Dale Collier combines sculptural objects and digital technology to perform contemporary historical critique. In his work Using fire to flesh out the fraud, Collier comments on the forgery and falsehood of convict artists in the early nineteenth century.

Collier takes a found painting that resembles a work by convict artist Joseph Lycett and engulfs the work in flames. The perpetually burning painting sits alongside an upturned and charred school desk. The burnt detritus from the desk is used as a drawing tool to tally 249 years of institutional and colonial violence.

Using fire to flesh out the fraud critiques the use of discipline and violence within western education systems by raising attention to alternative ways of knowing, sharing and learning, as expressed within traditional cultural practices such as making fire.