Image: Bundanon, New York
‘Man on Fire: Visions of Nebuchadnezzar’ enters its final weeks. The exhibition is located at Bundanon Art Museum, Boyd Education Centre, 170 Riversdale Road, Illaroo, New South Wales.
The exhibition brings Arthur Boyd’s iconic 1960s series into dialogue with a major new commission by contemporary artist Shaun Gladwell. It is on view from 4 July to 11 October 2026.
Boyd’s paintings depict the Old Testament story of King Nebuchadnezzar, who was exiled by God for his unchecked pride and condemned to live as an animal in the wilderness for seven years; the story became an allegory of a powerful man fallen from divine grace yet redeemed through transformation, allowing Boyd to explore masculine power and inheritance. Boyd was a pacifist and humanist, and the substantial series also articulated his deeply felt protest against the Vietnam War.
Gladwell has responded with an ambitious body of work that reimagines Boyd’s paintings through moving image, performance and works on paper, presenting a solitary man abandoned to the powers of the natural world, stripped of everything human and struggling through transformation. The project is grounded in Gladwell’s longstanding interest in Boyd’s practice and familial roots in the Shoalhaven.
‘Man on Fire’ reflects on the ways masculine power is performed, human relationships with the natural environment, and the dark shadows of conflict and empire-building. It also proposes that embracing a shared vulnerability offers potential for change.
