Billy Bain presents his first exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with By the River.
Dharug artist Billy Bain’s By the River reflects on the migration of the long-finned eel, tracing a passage from saltwater to freshwater that echoes his own journey of cultural return. Growing up off Country on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Bain’s early connection to place was shaped by surf culture. His practice now considers the parallels between the eel’s journey and his reconnection with the Dyarubbin/Hawkesbury River and the stories of his ancestors, the Boorooberongal people.
Bringing together sculpture and painting, By the River reimagines the beach and river as Indigenous spaces shaped by memory, belonging and cultural continuity. Drawing on coastal iconographies, observations of place and Indigenous storytelling, Bain explores the relationships between Country, identity and the ongoing transmission of cultural knowledge.
Collaboration and intergenerational exchange are central to the exhibition. Textile works created with Bain’s mother, Kathleen Bain, reflect a shared practice of making through which knowledge and culture are carried across generations. Here, water becomes both a material and a metaphor for the movement of culture, connecting people to Country, ancestry and one another.