Over two decades Daniel Boyd has explored the colonial history of Australia and challenged the nations ability to digest its past in a prolific catalogue of artwork.

The Art Gallery of NSW hosts 80 of Mr Boyd's pieces in a theme, style and culture spanning exhibition covering the extent of his career as one of the countries foremost contemporary artists.

Treasure Island is the first solo exhibition of its size for the artist in Australia.

The Kudjala, Ghungalu, Wangerriburra, Wakka Wakka, Gubbi Gubbi, Kuku Yalanji, Yuggera and Bundjalung man unpacks culture and lived experience in an intriguing and contemplative approach.

Boyd's earlier work, the No Beard series, appropriated and satirised historical portraits of colonial figures, "taking their control away", the gallery's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art curator Erin Vink said.

Boyd's style partially obstructs the artwork's subject, an allusion to Australia's perspective of colonial history often constructed by those presenting it, if not entirely hidden away.

"They reveal information but they also withhold it," AGNSW contemporary Australian art senior curator Isobel Parker Phillip said.

Paintings throughout depict the early images of colonial Australia and First Nations people presented to overseas audiences in efforts to "satiate a western curiosity".

Boyd said contending with the past, however confronting, was important for moving forward in an "equitable way".

"You need to understand the past to kind of understanding how you relate to other people in this country," he said.

"You can't forget about the debris of history.

"We need the tools to make sense of that."

Boyd places onus on a lack of appreciation of the past for the "myths around nation building" and relationship to place.

Pieces of Australia's largely unspoken history of slavey are similarly presented through his paternal ni-Vanuatu heritage.

The exhibition transitions from broader statements on colonialism and imperialism to more acute representations of immediate family.

"They're about representing a lived experience," Boyd said.

"You have to kind of underpin these broader ideas of colonialism and imperialism for this sense of truth."

"Firsthand experience."

Treasure Island opens Saturday June 4 and is on display at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney through to January 2023.