CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Richard Blackwell

Centered between sculpture and print-media, the interdisciplinary practice of Richard Blackwell involves a network of objects, a collage of marks, observations and processes, representing his felt experiences of the city. Parsed by printmaking, robotic fabrication and advanced manufacturing technology, produced through idiocractic systems of automation, Blackwell’s work analyses the changing mechanics of human labour, considering the ways in which human limitations can be transcended by creating systems of production that supplant manual labour. His work, largely, is a reflection of what it means to make physically and digitally, in the context of the urban landscape.

Created with film faced plywood, his recent relief works deal with ideas of modularity, fusing individual experience with architectonic space. Grappling with the unknown ways in which virtuality is changing our social reality and collapsing geographical space, the works function as urban cartography, and yet they also map the complicated, lonely virtual spaces that are rapidly subsuming contemporary (Western) existence.

Blackwell is an Australian artist recently relocated to Sydney after years based in Doha, where he was employed as the Assistant Professor of the Foundation Woodshop and Digital Lab at VCU Arts in Qatar. He was the recipient of the 2012 Fulbright Scholarship and completed his Masters in Fine Art at the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. In 2011 Blackwell exhibited a major series GROTTO, an exhibition in 3 volumes, which was shown in Canberra, Melbourne and Chicago, supported through the Australia Council of the Arts. Blackwell is currently stationed at the Design Futures Lab at UNSW and runs Studio Studio, a collective studio in Canberra ACT.

Richard Blackwell's work has been collected for ACT Legislative Assembly, Artbank, NAB Collection, The Justin Collection and he has undertaken several public commissions including the Mayfare Apartments, Canberra, 65 Mary Street, Brisbane and the NEXUS M+A Laneway Project, Brisbane, both undertaken with Urban Art Projects.

LISTEN HERE: Recorded Time podcast interview July 2021

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Straddling sculpture and printmedia, the interdisciplinary creations of Richard Blackwell trace the physiognomy and psychology of the built environment. Created on film faced plywood, the labyrinthine reliefs in his new series deal with ideas of modularity, fusing individual experience with architectonic space and dismantling what’s left of the weathered walls between physicality and digitality.
Excerpt of catalogue essay by Elli Walsh, 2020

Richard Blackwell monograph SOLD OUT

This 104pp artist monograph focuses on the art practice of FLG's Richard Blackwell from 2009 until 2018. Limited edition of 100, full colour, printed on 300gsm satin art paper and PUR bound. Each limited-edition book is signed and numbered by the artist.

BLACKWELL'S PUBLIC ART PROJECTS

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Media Highlights

Empty City Bike Ride 2021
Concrete and plywood
36cm x 24cm x 7cm
$2,500 AUD

Tyrell Corp 2021
Concrete and plywood
36cm x 24cm x 7cm
Sold
Sold

Rotery 2021
Travertine and plywood
36cm x 24cm x 7.2cm in artist's studio
$2,500 AUD

Interchange 2021
Concrete and plywood
36cm x 24cm x 7.2cm, in artist's studio
$2,500 AUD

Movement 2021
Concrete and plywood
36cm x 24cm x 7.2cm in artist's studio
$2,500 AUD

Labyrinth 2021
Film faced plywood
160cm x 320cm
Sold
Sold

Fibre 2020
Plywood, laminate and etching ink
65cm x 50cm x 4cm
Sold
Sold

Coax 2020
Plywood, laminate and etching ink
50cm x 52cm x 4cm
Sold
Sold

Graphite 2020
film-faced plywood, at SJB Interiors
118cm x 180cm x 4cm
Sold
Sold

Spark 2020
OSB, Etching ink & acrylic seal, at SJB Interiors
118cm x 76cm
$4,900 AUD

Sync 2020
OSB, Etching ink & acrylic seal, at SJB Interiors
116cm x 74cm x 4cm
$4,900 AUD

Lost 2020
film faced plywood, at SJB Interiors
190cm x 116cm x 4cm
$8,000 AUD

Labyrinth Offset Surface AP4 2020
mechanical ink drawing, framed AP4
75cm x 55cm framed size 84 x 65cm
$800 AUD

Sprite 2020
OSB, etching ink and acrylic seal
114cm x 85cm x 4cm in artist's studio
$4,900 AUD

City 2020
OSB, Etching ink & acrylic seal, in artist's studio
120cm x 170cm x 4cm
$7,500 AUD