Richard Lewer

Melbourne based artist Richard Lewer was born in New Zealand in 1970. His practice includes a wide range of media including painting, drawing, animation, sculpture and performance. Lewer describes himself as a social realist, motivated by a desire to tell challenging stories about the times in which we live. These stories often deal with human suffering, pain, desperation and bring uncomfortable truths about Australian history to the fore.

The History of Australia, 2018 is a nine-panel work of art, painted on steel, copper and brass. It explores a national narrative. Travelling through time this work references moments in Australian history including pre- colonisation, the First Fleet, war, the Great Depression, the gold rushes, bush rangers, Black Friday bush fires, the Stolen Generation, asylum seekers and the Cronulla riots.

While each panel depicts imagery suggestive of specific moments that have shaped Australia, collectively the work explores broader concepts of encounters, conflict and unrest. Lewer sees this work as an educational tool, encouraging viewers to question the history of Australia and explore who we are as a nation.

More work by Richard Lewer

In 2016, Richard Lewer's work The rotting bodies of men drowning in mud, the sweet stench of our death, my life is given, was featured in Sappers & Shrapnel. This was a contemporary art project inspired by the little-known and undervalued art form known as trench art. This term describes the objects made from the waste of warfare – objects crafted by soldiers, civilians and prisoners of war. Whether intended as trophies of war, souvenirs for those at home, or talismans for the battle ahead, trench art is an expression of our ineffable need to make art.

Although this work of art is not in AGSA's collection, you can listen to an artist talk with Lewer below. The exhibition Sappers & Shrapnel and the artists featured in the show may also provide you with other sources to discuss Australian History with your students.

Lewer's practice is motivated by a desire to tell stories about the times in which we live. These stories often deal with human suffering, pain, desperation and bring uncomfortable truths about Australian history to the fore. He identifies as a social realist artist, and like the Australian Social Realists of the 1930s and 1940s, his art is motivated by social commentary and a concern with injustice. [1] Lewer employs narrative and a figurative style to communicate directly, a choice that allows him to reach the widest possible audience. Scanning newspapers each morning, Lewer seeks out unusual reports to be the subject of his art. They are the kind of stories covered by media culture (TV, magazines, social media); yet his tone is not sensationalist or pitying. The stories, when filtered through his art, are both tougher and sadder than that.

Worse luck ... I am still here is Lewer's response to a news story he read about a Perth-based pensioner, Herbert Bernard Erickson. Eighty-one-year-old Erickson survived a failed suicide pact with his wife Julie in 2012. Lewer's animation presents Erickson's story in the first person, describing the trajectory of his life as a carer for his wheelchair-bound wife and her slide into ongoing chronic pain. The couple decided to end their life together. Carefully planning the end, Erickson paid their bills, wrote letters to loved ones, and then killed his wife and their two dogs. Unfortunately, he survived his own suicide attempt and faced jail for murder. Lewer's rendering of these details in his imperfectly drawn animation makes this tragic story almost unbearable.

Lewer's sympathies are with Erickson, and Worse luck ... I am still here demands that we face the uncomfortable reality that according to the law Erickson's act is murder and he can be jailed for his 'crime'?[2] Lewer's work could be heckling and propagandist but it's not. His attention to the vernacular gives his treatment of the subject in his drawings and script an authenticity. By capturing the ordinary details of the Ericksons' life - the toaster on the kitchen bench, the neatness of the couple's bedroom - he underscores how ordinary the couple were.

Lewer is a painter and draughtsman who has, in recent years, extended his drawing practice to include animation. His approach to animation is experimental, low tech and deliberately crude. The basis of this animation is over a thousand drawings and a script he has written.

Although he collaborated with specialists in the animation field, Lewer has no formal training in the area, and the final work has the playful spirit of an amateur. Lewer's drawing style is awkward and visually has more in common with comic books than with formal academic drawing. He exploits the expressive potential of the medium to communicate the emotional experiences of his subject. The drawings, when assembled and animated, make us aware of the isolation of Erickson and the psychological tension of his situation. Lewer's art brings this uncomfortable truth home to us.

Text written by Curator Maria Zagala, 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart catalogue, 2014