Richard Lewer: Basil Sellers Art Prize 2010 finalist

Ian Potter Museum of Art student ambassador Emma Rouse interviews Richard Lewer in his home, July 2010.

Richard Lewer has had a long engagement with sport; boxing, wood-chopping, table tennis and rugby have all featured in his art. For Lewer the connection between art and sport can be quite direct; he sees both as reactive and physical, involving responses to tasks and challenges. It is also metaphorical; the two are equivalent, he says, because both involve 'routine, skill, discipline, involvement, training, participation and socialisation'.

Sport is also about story-telling; post-mortem dissections of games at press conferences, big-noting at the bar or reminiscing about legendary contests. Often the narrative structures of a sport story borrow from unusual sources; the tone of a forensic post-match analysis can be similar to a coronial inquest, while the journey of an athlete towards victory reads like an Arthurian legend. One of the most familiar structures is the tragic form. These are the stories of the one that got away, the putt that didn't drop, the error that cost a game.

Lewer's new animated work 'The sound of your own breathing' (2010) is an exploration of such all-time lows. A melancholic tone is established by the monochrome drawings of the animation. The tales are unembellished and the tellers seemingly resigned to the hand fate has dealt them. The stories themselves may not recount catastrophic failures but they do remind us that aspiration can just as likely lead to failure as success. As many an acerbic coach reminds us, 'Wantin' ain't getting'.

Lewer's interest in such stories is neither mocking nor prurient. Empathy has played a large part in his art. Not the common-sense meaning of empathy as 'feeling for someone' but a deeper empathy that relates to an artist's capacity to engage with and represent the world. In order to re-tell a story effectively, Lewer needs to exercise empathy as 'the power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation'. And this, in turn, is the relationship that a viewer must establish with the artwork. 'Sport', says Lewer, 'is about relationships and community, camaraderie and belonging'.

Following Lewer's penchant for linking art and sport, we might say that art, too, is driven by the artist's ability to establish a sense of camaraderie and belonging between viewer and art.

Text by Chris McAuliffe from the Basil Sellers Art Prize 2010 catalogue.

http://hugomichellgallery.com/artists/richard-lewer/

http://www.orexgallery.co.nz/artist_pages/Lewer_ARTIST%20PAGE.htm

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• art
• visual art
• contemporary art
• artist interview
• sport and art
• art and sport
• drawing
• animation
• Australian art
• Richard Lewer
• Basil Sellers Art Prize
• Sellers Prize
• Melbourne culture
• Melbourne art scene