Richard Lewer is a Melbourne-based visual artist who works with video and animation, painting, drawing and performance. Lewer has been labelled as a contemporary social realist largely driven by a desire to explain patterns and connections within crime, sport and religion.

Early life and education

Lewer completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University from 1989 to 1992. He also holds a Master of Visual Arts, Victorian College of the Arts, from the University of Melbourne, 2000.

Art practice

Lewer is based in Melbourne and exhibits regularly in Australia and New Zealand.

Awards and prizes

Lewer won the Wallace Art Award in 2008 for a painting from a series called ''Skill, Discipline, Training''. In 2014, he was the 63rd recipient of the Blake Prize for Religious Art for his media work ''Worse Luck I’m Still Here''. Lewer was the winner of the

Basil Sellers Art Prize The Basil Sellers Art Prize is a long-term project, with wikt:biennial, biennial awards. The exhibit tours by collaboration of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, and NETS Victoria (National Exhibition Touring Support Victor ...

in 2016, with his submission of a series of oil paintings titled 'The Theatre of Sports'. He was an Archibald Prize finalist in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

,2017 Finalist
Archibald Prize

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Symposia and residencies

In 2010, he completed an

artist's residency Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

with the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, New York. From 2012 to 2013 he was artist in residence at the Fremantle Arts Centre in Perth. In 2014 Lewer was artist in residence with the

Parnngurr Community Parnngurr is a medium-sized Aboriginal community, located 370 km from Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, within the Shire of East Pilbara. Parnngurr was originally known as Cotton Creek, the name of the ephemeral creek t ...

(

Martumili The Martu (Mardu) are a grouping of several Aboriginal Australian peoples in the Western Desert cultural bloc. Name The Martu people were originally speakers of various Wati languages in the Western Desert dialect continuum whose identity coa ...

artists), Western desert, Western Australia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewer, Richard 1970 births Living people Australian artists People from Hamilton, New Zealand Blake Prize for Religious Art winners Archibald Prize finalists