Considering himself a contemporary social realist, Richard Lewer’s paintings depict life in all its ambiguity. The artist’s fascination with true crime stories, what he describes as the ‘Gothic underbelly of contemporary life,’ led him in 2011 to research Melbourne’s notorious waterfront wars of the 1960s and ‘70s, when a battle for control over the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union is said to have claimed the lives of forty people.
Artworks featured:
Richard Lewer Funeral of Jack Nicholls, 2011
oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide