Billy Bain

b. 1992, Manly, Australia.

Billy Bain is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist of Dharug descent, the traditional Aboriginal people of Greater Sydney. His practice unpacks and challenges presumptions of Australian identity, subverting and humouring Australia’s colonial iconographies and narratives whilst championing Indigenous resistance and visibility. Bain creates work that explores his experiences as an Aboriginal man existing within urban Australia, a place where he and his family’s presence and survival has been systematically denied.  With a practice that spans ceramic sculpture, oil painting, etchings and installations, Bain creates new narratives that discuss a contemporary idea of what it means to be a young Indigenous person in Australia today.

Born in Manly (1992), Sydney, Bain is currently working on Dharug land as a resident artist at Parramatta Artist Studios Rydalmere. He is a casual lecturer at UNSW Art & Design and a Master of Fine Arts Research Candidate. In 2024 Bain has presented his work in institutions and public galleries such as the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Australian Museum, Penrith Regional Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Ngununggula Southern Highlands and Western Sydney University.  Bain is a multiple time Wynne and Sulman prize finalist. He has been awarded Artist of the Year at the FBI SMAC Awards, Winner of the Macquarie Emerging Art Prize and was a finalist in Shepparton Art Museums Indigenous Ceramic Awards. His work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Western Sydney University Collection, Artbank, the Macquarie Collection and Manly Regional Art Gallery & Museum.