Artwork Information

Richard Bell was born in Charleville, in the far south-west of Queensland in 1953 and is from the Kamilaroi, Kooma,

Jiman and Gurang Gurang peoples. His work is included in major public and private collections and he has also been represented in an extensive number of major contemporary exhibitions, both within Australia and overseas. He has worked as an artist since the late 1980s and was instrumental in the first wave of urban-based Indigenous artists.

 

Bell's no-nonsense, confronting work combines both text and image, appropriating styles and motifs from various other artists, periods and cultures. All this combines to create a powerful political and social commentary which is present in much of his work. Politics, art and religion are just some of the themes informing Bell's work. Throughout the 1980s, his work often challenged non-indigenous artists who appropriated Indigenous imagery in their work. He has also addressed the issue of favouritism sometimes shown to traditional (and therefore authentic) Indigenous art over the work of urban-based Indigenous artists.

 

Bell has developed into one of the most provocative and uncompromisingly brilliant of today's contemporary indigenous artists. Raucous, rebellious and rampaging, Bell pulled his best stunt yet by winning the prestigious 20^th Telstra National Aboriginal Arts Award in August 2003 with his entry titled 'Scienta E Metaphysica (Bell's Theorum)', also known as 'Aboriginal Art Its a White Thing'. He says himself that ".it is my job as an artist to test people's resolve, to provoke thought and that's what I do, I provoke thought and discussion."

 

A commentator in the 'Australian Art Collector' once said that Richard Bell "should be seen together with Gordon

Bennett and Tracey Moffatt as representing Australian black urban art at its most intellectually astute". Another art critic and academic, Rex Butler, regards Bell as one of Australia's premier political artists. Not only politically relevant, in the January 2003 and 2007 issues of the journal 'Australian Art Collector' Bell was ranked amongst the top 50 of Australia's Most Collectable Artists, securing his reputation as a valuable artist in Australia.

 

 

2008 'Richard Bell: Scratch an Aussie', Milani Gallery, Brisbane

2008 Sydney Biennale, Sydney

2007 'Power and Beauty', Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

2006 'Positivity', Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

2005 Bellas Miliani Gallery, Brisbane

2004 'Right Now', Criterion Gallery, Hobart

2004 'Oh Richie', Spacement, Melbourne

2003 'A Few Good Men', 45 Downstairs, Melbourne

2003 'Made Men', Metro Arts, Brisbane

2002 'Emotional Fitness', Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane

2002 'Discomfort', Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane

2002 'Lines II', Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane

2001 'A Few Good Men', Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane

2001 'Dreamtime: The Dark and the Light', Sammlung Essl, Austria

2001 'The White Desert', Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

2001 'A Few of my Favourite Things', Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane

 

 

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide

Artbank, Sydney

Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Brisbane

University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane

Guonxuong, China

City of Auckland, New Zealand

City of London, England.

Suncorp Collection