Sport drawings

The first release of prints by Richard, these giclee prints are exclusive to OREXART. The images were first exhibited in Richard's exhibition Skill, Discipline, Training at Melbourne's Ian Potter Museum of Art and were recently included in the Monash University Museum of Art Richard Lewer survey show Nobody Likes a Show Off.

Prayer Book drawings

These charcoal drawings were produced by Richard in 2008.

From Richard's artist statement

These drawings are based on the Mass Prayer Book I received from the Catholic Church in 1977 on the completion of my First Holy Communion at St Pius X Church, Hamilton. 

The Mass is the Catholic Church’s most important event.  It is offered at least once a day by millions of priests around the world.  The law of the Church states that those who stay from Mass on Sundays without good reason are guilty of a grave offence against God.

The Prayer Book is a visual reference, which guides the congregation through the rituals of the Mass.  As an alter boy, familiar rituals such as when to ring the bell or to light the candles were ingrained into my psyche along with the learned patterns, the rhythm of the text and the sermon. 

The Prayer Book has been in my studio for the past 10 years; it is a kind of a security blanket, not unlike how I see drawing – a familiar language but also part of my routine and discipline.  The drawings have been made using repetitiveness similar to that followed in the Mass ritual; however they are also my soft-focused memory of the ritual.

Confessions pegboard works

Consisting of over fifty individual works on pegboard, Richard's Confessions series was exhibited at this year's Auckland Art Fair and was also included in the Monash survey show Nobody Likes a Show Off.

From an article by Jared Davis:

While a crossover between art and life is arguably inescapable in any creative practice, Lewer's subjectivity is most effective in its ability to disintegrate any sense of mediation or differentiation between the two. This unmediated dialogue is perhaps most apparent in works such as Pegboard Confessions, where Lewer scrawls on pegboard seemingly unreserved admissions given at a Catholic confession booth (a throwback to his religious upbringing).

This is art recounting life, yet his commentary renders such a distinction unimportant. Lewer's texts seem particularly 'real' not because they are unique or different in nature to other critical exchanges often presented through art, nor for their subjects, but because of the artist's individual ability to imbue a sense of closenesss to his subject matter without alienating the viewers. We are invited into Lewer's experiences but can so easily draw them into our own.