This diptych reinterprets a classical bust of Hercules through Daniel Boyd’s signature pointillist technique. Drawing on his Aboriginal and Pacific Islander heritage, Boyd engages with interwoven discourses of science, religion and aesthetics to reveal the layered complexity of cultural, political and personal memory.

By replicating the bust twice, he references Lacanian psychoanalysis and the concept of the “mirror state,” exploring the tension between visibility and concealment, certainty and doubt. In reimagining this icon of Western heroism, Boyd challenges the authority of European artistic traditions and invites alternative perspectives on history. The interaction between the two figures illustrates how identity and power can be shaped through acts of observation, encouraging viewers to reconsider the inherited narratives and histories they perpetuate.