Michael Riley was a highly political Indigenous artist, yet his work is enigmatic rather than didactic. In cloud, the ten panels each depict a single motif against a summer sky. The images combine meanings from Indigenous cultures with general, more intuitive associations. For instance, a feather is included and the motif of wings repeats; Riley was a Wiradjuri man, from central western New South Wales, and in his language the word ‘gawurra’ is used for both wing and feather. In contrast, the ‘imported’ symbols of a cow and funerary statue seem strange and unnatural.