Richard Bell Artist Biography

Richard Bell

Artist Biography

Richard Bell is a Queensland urban artist and political activist; openly discussing the history of race relations through video works of Scratch an aussie(Figure 2) and Uz vs THEM (Figure 3); Scientia E Metaphysica(Figure 4) and Bell's Theorem focuses on the state of aboriginal art industry and the art market; and in The Peckin Order (Figure 1), Bell appropriates the western pop art stylisation of Roy Lichtenstein to open dialogue regarding indigenous cultural appropriation;

Richard Bell's experiences during his youth in an openly racist australia and exposure to political activism in the 1970s are the roots of his arts practice. In 1953 indigenous people were not permitted to shop in the town Charleville (Queensland) where he was born. Living off the land, his family constructed a shack once they had collected enough discarded tin, and had previously raised bell for the first two years of his life in a tent (Allas 2008).

Bells mother moved his brother Marshall and himself from Queensland to the Northern territory in 1959. It is here that she began working at the Retta Dixon Home in Darwin. The original intention of the Retta Dixon Home was to assist the assimilation of aboriginal children into western culture and in the process undermined aboriginal groups. Between the 1860s and 1970s approximately 50,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander indigenous children were removed from their families and communities, these children are contemporarily known as the 'Stolen Generations' (Bambrick 2011).

At the age of 17 Bell's mother passed away and he was fostered by Nellie and Harold Leedie in Bowenville. It is interesting to note that Nellie Leedie is a relative of renowned Aboriginal activist “Sugar” Ray Robinson. He left school in year twelve to persue an apprenticeship in Dalby with Napier Brothers as a toolmaker, where he stayed for two years before heading fruit picking in tasmania and victoria (Allas 2008). He found himself in Redfern, Sydney later that same year in 1974 . It is here that he become associated with Redfern community and Black Panther-inspired politics of the 1970s which defined many of his peers indigenous identity (Harford 2013).

Bell relocated to Toowoombah after living in Sydney for ten years, then onto Moree with his partner, Liz Duncan. Now with a family of three children they moved to Brisbane to join his brother in creating artefacts, such as boomerangs, for the international tourist market which they sold from their shop 'Wiumulli' (1987 to 1990). Bell continued working as a 'tourist artist' till 1994, making postcard style prints that were mounted and shrink-wrapped and crafting boomerangs which were distributed throughout tourist retail outlets such as Queensland and New South Wales tourist information centres. During this time he also begain to be exhibited in 'fine art' exhibitions such as the show 'Balance 1990'.

Bells life took a major turn, his relationship broke down, and from 1998 until 2000 he lived the life of an iterant moving between Moree, Kempsey and Redfern. Whilst in Redfern during the 2000 Sydney Olympics Bell was invited to attend the art opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) of the late artist “Urban Dingo” by Tiriki Onus ( Lin Onus 's son). Prior to the exhibition opening Bell opened dialogue with Onus and Michael Eather regarding politics and art. “i was told that I could do and say anything and not get arrested” (Richard Bell 2014). This experience changed the course of Bell's artistic career and led to him revisiting his previous bodies of work.

Following the exhibition Bell was invited by Eather for the following year to work at the Fireworks Gallery. During his time there he feverishly experimented over twelve hours a day with different techniques and aesthetics which would aid the message he wished to deliver.

To further develop his practice he began researching contemporary art material, in particular the writings of Imants Tillers and other writings on Tillers. Inspired he reproduced Tillers’ work Untitled (1978), which is itself a reproduction of a Hans Heyson work, Summer (1909) which he stated that he “pulled the black-fulla act on Tillers” (Bell 2014) .

In 2002 Bell was given the opportunity to exhibit alongside the works of Emily Kngwarreye, Michael Nelson Jagamarra and Imants Tillers in the exhibition “Discomfort” at Fireworks Gallery. Along side the installation piece for this show he presented his renowned 12 page 'Bell's Theorem' (Allas 2008).

'Bell’s Theorem' is significant as its manifesto highlights some of the inequities in the Aboriginal Art market which have been long-standing. And notes that it is non-Aboriginal people, not the aboriginal people, who define and control the Aboriginal Art market.

'White people say what’s good. White people say what’s bad. White people buy it. White people sell it.’  Richard Bell 2007.

Since the emergence of the international aboriginal art market in the 1980s approximately 50% of australian artists are indigenous and are recognised as the largest producers of art per capita (Neale 2010). It is the belief of Bell that western culture is in the process of slowly digesting and commodifying aboriginal culture (Perkins 2014).

Within the Western art system, Australian Aboriginal art defines indigenous artists as either traditional, people living in the 'outback', or as 'Urban'. Traditional Aboriginal art refers to artworks that aesthetically empoly imagery and styles used in or relating to designs that engage with themes such as ancient traditions and ceremony. Bell adds that these works are fair game for appropriation. Aboriginal artists that live in built up residential areas such as towns and cities and express contemporary themes and engage with western media and style are described as 'Urban'. Bell notes that this term errodes cultural authenticity through the process of colonisation (Chapman 2006).

Speaking as a member of the Jiman Kamilaroi, Gurang Gurang and Kooma communities (MCA 2017).

Bell states, ‘ … Our culture was ripped from us and not much remains. Most of our languages have disappeared. We don’t have black or even dark skin. We don’t take shit from you.’

In 2003 the philosophical grounding in 'Bell's Theorum' led to a group of Brisbane-based Aboriginal artists, including Bell, Tony Albert, Gordon Hookey and Vernon Ah Kee, to form the radical collective proppaNOW (Perkins 2014).

'Bell's Theorum' accompanied his painting Scientia E Metaphysica which was entered into the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 2003. The painting emblazoned with the words 'Aboriginal Art / It's A White thing', a bold statement expressing his opposition to the commercial use in advertising campaigns and tourist promotion of Aboriginal imagery. This conceptual exploration is additionally expressed in his appropriation of Western Modernism's painterly expression and iconography, styles and forms.

Scientia E Metaphysica aesthetically is an evolved Indigenous expression of colorful and gridded patterns reminiscent of Pop art. The issues in the sociopolitical history of black and white relations in Australia are expressed through a concise visual formula of black and white dripping and fields of the same colors on opposing sides of the painting. To futher the discourse of aboriginal art exploitation at the hands of art dealers and middle men, a left biased abstract red triangle is making reference to the 'triangle of discomfort', a concept intruduced in 'Bell's Theorum' (GCA 2017).

Scientia E Metaphysica went on to win the prestigious prize commonly known as the 'telstras'. Bell received national recognition from the contemporary art world as an artist who's practice carried a relevant and conceptually strong message and said it loudly (Allas 2008).

The dialogue between indigenous and white australians is continued in his video work Uz vs THEM .

“This artwork examines and challenges existing sociopolitical power structures. Depicting a cool, calm, collected black man against an angry white villain, it presents no apprent winner.” Richard Bell, 2007 (MCA 2017).

The two fighters training at a boxing gym in Richard Bell’s video work Uz vs Them provides the environment for the transposition of the political struggle between Aboriginal and white Australia. Bell takes on the role of the ‘magnificent black hero’ ready to ‘fight for Australia’, the other ‘an angry white dude’. The two men are training to defending opposing ideological stances.

The posturing of the two men in Uz and Them conveyed with a tongue-in-cheek approach, with Bell surrounded by a posse of gyrating white girls while he is wearing a suit.

Employing Bell's signature sarcasm and humour the verbal and physical sparring match between the two, while grappling with serious and confronting issues, never takes itself too seriously. By confronting white Australians with their position in the history of racial politics and drawing on popular culture references such as urban Indigenous music and vernacular language, Uz vs Them reverses power relations (MCA 2017).

Bell again uses video at an almost cinematic scale to reverse power relations in Scratch an aussie. Bell states:

''For a video installation I wanted to create stereotypical Australians, the beautiful, blonde Aryan-looking ones, and they also refer to the beach and the Cronulla riots, ...I put them in bikinis and budgie smugglers. Then I added two black men in intellectual positions, which you never see on TV.'' Richard Bell, 2013.

In this video work Bell casts himself in a dualistic role of therapist and patient. As the role of the therapist his patients are blond, gold swim-suited Anglo-Australian whom devulge trivial middle-class first world concerns, rants and racist jokes.

In the next sequence Bell is now patient to his long-time collaborator Gary Foley. It is not the belittlement or pain, but the abject absurdity of those who flaunt it that he expresses. He is laughing at, not with, his budgie-smuggling and bikini-clad blond subjects (Rule 2013). And in a strange twist, the golden bikini, reminiscent of the Surfers Paradise Meter Maids, now sits in the pantheon of Australian art, thanks to Richard Bell (Harford, 2013).

Bell argues that white Australia has not only appropriated Aboriginal land but also its traditional art. And uses it to strengthen Australia's tourism and image, all the while the government hides the poverty, lack of roads, education and schools, and the racist attitude that is part of aboriginal life (Branrick 2011). In response to this Bell engages with appropriation and manipulation of a range of western art genres in his art and paintings.

Roy Lichtenstein’s melodramatic comic strip parody has been appropriated in Bells 2007 paint The Peckin Order which is part of a series of paintings called Made Men. The original painting by Lichenstein, titled Shipboard Girl, depicts a blonde woman, eyes closed and red lips slightly parted, throwing her head back against the left side of the canvas. The blonde in Shipboard Girl is replicated in the The Pecking Order , Bell alters her skin tone to black, laying her to the right side of the canvas and has added a thought bubble, “Thank Christ I’m not Aboriginal!!!”, and in doing so is reversing expectations (Bambrick 2011).

Richard Bell’s artistic career now spans three decades and has garnered financial and critical success. His solo exhibitions include Richard Bell: Imagining Victory, Artspace, Sydney (2013); Imagining Victory; Embassy, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth (2014);  Uz vs Them, was a touring exhibition organised by the American Federation of the Arts, and toured to venues across North America throughout 2013; Exhibition titled, I am not sorry, was held at Location One, New York. He has also exhibited in numerous national and international group exhibitions. Bell's works are now held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canada, Ottawa, Canberra and state and regional galleries throughout Australia (MCA 2017).

Richard Bell's early life, in the openly racist australia of the 1950s, acts as a cornerstone to his art . His art is provocative, political and his persona is integral to his arts practice, making Bell inseparable from his art. Bell has appropriated the works of Roy Lichtenstein in The Peckin Order (Figure 4) to reverse expectations; discussed the history of race relations through video works of Scratch an aussie(Figure 2) and Uz vs THEM (Figure 1). Tho while critiquing the Aboriginal Art market in Scientia E Metaphysica(Figure 3) and Bell's Theorem , the art world has served Bell's political purposes well.

“you can get away with things...you can say virtually whatever you want...and you wont get arrested” Richard Bell 2014 (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 2014).

Figure 1. Richard Bell, The Peckin Order 2007, acrylic on canvas 150 x 150cm.

Source: Milani Gallery. Accessed 10 May.

http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artwork/peckin-order

Figure 2. Richard Bell, Scratch an aussie 2008, video, 10 minutes.

Source: QAGOMA. 2013. Accessed 10 May. http://tv.qagoma.qld.gov.au/2014/02/25/richard-bell-scratch-an-aussie/

Figure 3. Richard Bell, Uz vs THEM 2014, video, 2min 47s.

Source: MCA. Accessed 1O May. https://www.mca.com.au/collection/work/2008.43/

Figure 4. Richard Bell, Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell's Theorem) 2003, acrylic on canvas 240 x 540cm.

Source: Kooriweb, Accessed 10 May.

http://www.kooriweb.org/bell/aaiawt1.jpg

List of References

Allas, Tess. 2008. “Richard Bell“ Design & art australia online. Accessed 10 May 2017 Url:https://www.daao.org.au/bio/richard-bell/biography/

Bambrick, Gail. 2011. “The Art of Confrontation“ Tuffs Now. Accessed May 10 2017. url: http://now.tufts.edu/articles/art-confrontation

Bell, Richard. 2002. “Bell's Theorem: ABORIGINAL ART-It's a white thing!“ kooriweb Accessed 10 May 2017. url:http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/great/art/bell.html

Chapman, Katrina. 2006. “Positioning urban Aboriginal art in the Australian Indigenous art market“ Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management. 4(2): 219:228. url: http://apjacm.arts.unimelb.edu.au/article/view/47/38

GCA. 2017. “Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell’s Theorem), 2003“ The Global Contemporary Art World After 1989. Accessed 10 May 2017. url: http://www.global-contemporary.de/en/artists/95-richard-bell

Harford, Sonia. 2013. “Sinister truth behind the bikini“ The Sydney Morning Herald. Accessed May 10 2017. url:http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/sinister-truth-behind-the-bikini-20130205-2dwdb.html

Neale, Margo. 2010. “Learning to be a proppa“ Aboriginal artists collective ProppaNOW“ Artlink 30(1). url:https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/3359/learning-to-be-proppa-aboriginal-artists-collecti/

Perkins, Hetti. 2014. Tradition Today : Indigenous Art in Australia from the Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales

Rule, Dan. 2013. “Agitation, Ediquette and Identity: THE ART OF RICHARD BELL“ . Broadsheet. Url: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/art-and-design/article/agitation-etiquette-and-identity-art-richard-bell

stateliraryqld 2011. Richard Bell Digital Story (video)(Youtube:State Library of Queensland. 2011) url:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKB1BezX1CU

MCA. 2017. “Richard Bell: Uz vs Them 2006“ Museum of Contemporary Art. Accessed 10 May 2017. url: https://www.mca.com.au/collection/work/2008.43/

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 2014. Appropriation, Modernism and Indigenous Art in the Contemporary Field (video)( Youtube: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. 2014 ) url:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IarSaWxwjdE