NAVA ARTIST FILE: RICHARD BELL

RICHARD BELL: I'm Richard Bell.
I have an art practice in Brisbane, you know.
Well, the best artists, the best living artists come from there
like, you know, that's my standard answer.
(LAUGHS)

QUESTION: WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE OF ART?

RICHARD: Oh, my first experience with art.
Well, the first experience that I can remember with art
was in high school
when they offered art as a course, you know,
I thought, what is this, you know?
Yes. (LAUGHS)
I had no idea what this thing was,
you know, like, I was early teens, 12,
not 12, 13, 14.
But my first adult interaction with art was probably here in Sydney
in Redfern.
So, I lived next door to the Black Theatre,
so, in Redfern.
We saw plays, you know, like...
The people who were in those plays directed them,
and they were all blackfellas,
they got talking about art a bit, you know,
but I didn't get into art until much later,
until like, you know,
until late 80s.
And that was just in Brisbane, you know,
where I just spoke with artists,
curators,
there was art critics there as well.
Mainly artists, like, just...
I was interested in art, you know, so.
I'd invite people to come around to my place
and I'd cook meals for them and that.
Yeah, pump them with alcohol and food in exchange for information
about what this thing was that was called art.

QUESTION: WHAT'S BEEN A TURNING POINT IN YOUR CAREER?

RICHARD BELL: I think deciding that I wanted to be an artist.
That I had - well, not to be an artist, but to make art.
I think deciding that was probably
the best decision I've ever made in my life,
or one of the best, anyway.
I put together a project in Venice last year, you know,
which was, you know, quite a big project
and cost more than $0.25 million
that I had to raise to realise this project.
And it turned out way better than what I dared to imagine it could.

QUESTION: HOW DO YOU SURVIVE AS AN ARTIST?

RICHARD BELL: Well, I've been making art for a long while.
It took about 15 years, you know, to add it to...
before I could actually make enough money, you know,
to survive without being on the dole.
That was one of my aims slash wishes (LAUGHS)
when I started out doing this,
it was to be able to make a living off it.
But it's very difficult,
'cause art is downplayed like in this country
and downplayed in many of the Anglo-cultures
like around the world.
Like...
particularly here and in the United States of America, so.
We basically have to put up with treatment that
most other industries don't,
have never sort of been involved in this kind of thing.
So, basically, right-wing governments,
just one the first things they do is just slash the arts budget.
What that says to me is that art must be very powerful,
if the first thing that the politicians do is to cut arts funding.
They are trying to disappear art in this country.
Whereas the creative arts employs 7.2% of
the workforce.
You know, it's about the same as mining
and I'm happy to say, I'm proud to say that
our industry pays more tax than the mining industry.