Richard Lewer


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.

Biography

Richard Lewer was born in 1970, in Hamilton, New Zealand. 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, Victoria College of the Arts from the University of Melbourne, 2000. Lewer is based in Melbourne and exhibits regularly in Australia and New Zealand.

Awards and prizes

Richard Lewer won the Wallace Art Award in 2008 for a painting from a series called 'Skill, Discipline, Training'.
In 2014, Lewer was the 63rd recipient of the Blake Prize for Religious Art for his emotive new media work 'Worse Luck I’m Still Here'.
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'.
He was an Archibald Prize finalist in 2017.

Symposiums and residencies

In 2014 Lewer was an artist in residence with the Parnngurr Community, Western Desert, Western Australia. In 2012-2013 Lewer was an artist in residence at the Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth. In 2010, Lewer completed an artists residency with the International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York.