Richard Lewer

Richard Lewer is a Melbourne-based visual artist who works with video and animation, painting, drawing and performance.^[1][2] Lewer has been labelled as a contemporary social realist largely driven by a desire to explain patterns and connections within crime, sport and religion.^[1][2][3]

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.^[4]

Art practice

Lewer is based in Melbourne and exhibits regularly in Australia and New Zealand.^[5][6]

Awards and prizes

Lewer won the Wallace Art Award in 2008 for a painting from a series called Skill, Discipline, Training.^[7]

In 2014, he was the 63rd recipient of the Blake Prize for Religious Art for his media work Worse Luck I’m Still Here.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Lewer was the winner of the Basil Sellers Art Prize in 2016, with his submission of a series of oil paintings titled 'The Theatre of Sports'.^[12]

He was an Archibald Prize finalist in 2017,^[13] 2021^[14] and 2022.^[15]

Symposia and residencies

In 2010, he completed an artist's residency with the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, New York.^[16]

From 2012 to 2013 he was artist in residence at the Fremantle Arts Centre in Perth.^[17]

In 2014 Lewer was artist in residence with the Parnngurr Community (Martumili artists), Western desert, Western Australia.^[18][19][20]