Richard Bell

Private Collection, Brisbane

Milani Gallery, Brisbane, All You Need is Love, December 13, 2023 – January 25, 2024

OSMOS at Independent 20th Century, New York City, August 29 - September 8, 2024

In 2001 Richard Bell developed a technique for making ‘dot paintings’ that would engage aboriginal aesthetics with modernist approaches to painting. The method employed was developed as a response to critical assessments of Aboriginal painting as a movement with aesthetic resemblances to abstract expressionism. As a reaction, Bell began making dots in the method of action painting, declaring that the 'traditional' dot technique was a form of slave labour demanded by the white controlled art-market. He named the technique, 'desperately seeking Emily’, in homage to the great indigenous painter Emily Kam Kngwarey. He has continued the series intermittently since that time, embedding within the skein of dots barely perceptible messages. In this case, the text: Where is the Outrage? can be understood in relation to the ongoing prejudice and poverty experienced by Aboriginal Australians. It has been noted that his technique also recalls visually the Ishihara tests for colour blindness, where digits or figures are embedded in a picture composed of dots differentiated only by colour. Bell’s allusion to colour blindness is an attempt to imagine a world without racism. Works from this series are held in notable collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and the Foundation Opale, Switzerland.