Sculpture (Sculpture)

Untitled (Construction) recalls the series of glass cubes that gained Bell international recognition in the 1960s. Resembling a black-mirrored box, this recent iridescent piece produces an uncanny effect in which the interior planes seem to enclose a mysterious light. Although austere in form, Bell’s works are far from simple: he uses technology like a vacuum-coating process, to accurately control the different levels of opacity and transparency on the surface of his immaculate glass works.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Like many of Larry Bell’s works, VFGY9 deals primarily with the viewer’s experience of sight. The blocks resemble a stone carving, or slabs of wood shaped into a simple organic composition whose overall sheen is varied through a thin layer of aluminum vapor. Yet, the real material of Bell’s piece is actually light, formed within the viewer’s eye into masses as present as stone.

Painting (Painting)

For Richard Bell, art is not simply a vehicle through which to represent and convey political content. On one hand, art itself has an activist charge—in its very form and presence it can shake up conventional or assumed understandings, opinions, and behaviours. But on the other hand, it is deeply implicated in the actions and attitudes associated with colonialism in Australia and abroad.