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The 2016 Australia Council Award winners have been announced with Queensland artist Richard Bell winning the Australia Council Visual Arts Award. The award honours eight Australian artists who have made an exceptional contribution to the arts over the years and spans music, literature, community arts and cultural development, visual arts, theatre, dance, and emerging and experimental arts.
Bell has held a number of solo exhibitions locally and internationally, is represented in major collections in Australia and New Zealand and his work Embassy is part of the 20th Biennale of Sydney. He is currently working on a big sculpture project for Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, Netherlands opening in June. Bell says, “the reason I make art is to tell what I reckon are the important stories and significant events that have happened during my lifetime in the hope that they would be recorded and exhibited nationally and internationally, so that white Australia can’t just rewrite our history again.”
Alongside Bell, the 2016 Australia Council Award recipients are: David Malouf AO (NSW) – Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, Brett Dean (Vic) – Don Banks Music Award, Kelli McCluskey (WA) – Australia Council Emerging & Experimental Arts Award, Lucy Guerin (Vic) – Australia Council Dance Award, Yaron Lifschitz (Qld) – Australia Council Theatre Award, Lily Shearer (NSW) – Ros Bower Award (Community Arts and Cultural Development) and Nathan Stoneham (Qld) – Kirk Robson Award (Community Arts and Cultural Development).
Australia Council Chief Executive Officer, Tony Grybowski says, “These artists are widely respected by their peers and have each played an important role in the national development of their art form. Many of them spend considerable time working internationally and are wonderful ambassadors for Australian arts.”
Richard Bell portrait
Courtesy the artist, Milani Gallery, Brisbane and Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney
