Ryan Presley

Dr Ryan Presley (b. 1987, Mparntwe/Alice Springs) is a Marri Ngarr artist currently based on Yugambeh Country (Logan City, QLD). His practice spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, installation, and writing, and is marked by a deep engagement with the visual economies of power, memory, and resistance. 

Presley’s work critically reconfigures national narratives, foregrounding Indigenous autonomy and challenging colonial modes of representation and understanding. Known for combining technical precision with conceptual rigor, his projects interrogate the symbolic and material legacies of settler-colonialism—particularly through the lens of currency, ritual, and state authority. 

He exhibits internationally, including Gadigal/Sydney's Art Gallery of New South Wales (2023), and Artspace (2019),  Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum (2018), and Vienna’s Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste (2021). His major solo exhibition Fresh Hell was co-commissioned by Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (Kaurna) and Gertrude Contemporary (Naarm/Melbourne). Presley is represented by Milani Gallery and holds a PhD in Art Theory (Griffith University 2016). He is a recent recipient of a 2025 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.