Professor Catherine Bell

Associate Professor Catherine Bell 

Associate Professor Catherine Bell is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, lecturer in visual art in the Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design degree in the School of Arts (VIC) and Gallery Director at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.  She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Art History & English Literature) from the University of Queensland in 1989 and completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Sculpture) at Queensland University of Technology in 1992.  After graduating from Q.U.T., Bell was awarded the Melville Haysom scholarship and residency at the Queensland Art Gallery (1994).  That year Bell had her first solo exhibition at Sutton Gallery and has since been included in group exhibitions such as Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales (1993), Small Monuments, Queensland Art Gallery (1995), The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (1996), Truth Universally Acknowledged, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (2005), True Crime: Murder and Misdemeanour in Australian Art, Geelong Gallery (2008), The Animal Gaze (Touring Exhibition), Whitechapel Gallery (2008), Centre for Contemporary Art, Exeter and Plymouth City Museum (2009) and Tier Perspektiven, Georg-Kolbe Museum & Tier-Werden Mensch-werden, NGBK, Berlin (2009).  In 1996 Bell completed an MFA at RMIT University before moving to the United Kingdom to embark on a research fellowship at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford University (2000-01).  In 2003 Bell was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University, Caulfield.  She has curated exhibitions at Melbourne&rsquos Shrine of Remembrance, Victorian College of the Arts &ndash Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Linden-Centre for Contemporary Art and artist run initiatives, Blindside and Victoria Park Gallery.  She was the recipient of the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for the best doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University in 2008 and was awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts Board, Greene Street, New York Studio, 2010.  Catherine Bell is represented by Sutton Gallery Melbourne and her video work can be viewed at the Australian Video Art Archive www.videoartchive.org.au

She has presented her Doctoral research at the 95th Annual CAA conference in New York (2007), King's College, London at the Menzies Centre for Australian studies (2008), York St John University UK and NGBK Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin (2009), University of Toronto (2010) and International Arts & Health Conference, Notre Dame University Australia, Freemantle Western Australian (2012). Her emerging research in art and health complements her art practice that forefronts art on the margins, art activism, community engagement and feminist perspectives. 

Individual Exhibitions

2017 Odor Patris Tu (My Father's Smell), Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

         We Die As We Live, St Vincent's Private Hospital Gallery, Melbourne

2014 The Remains of the Day, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

2013 The Gathering, The Substation, Melbourne 

2012 This little piggy fades to pink, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Melbourne

2011 Mum's the Word, Sutton Gallery

          Waste not Want not, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne

2007 Love and Other Bruises, Monash Faculty Gallery, Melbourne 

          Are you a man or a mouse mat? Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

          Felt is the Past Tense of Feel, Galapagas Art Space, Brooklyn, New York

2006 Felt is the Past Tense of Feel, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne

2005 Rain Cheque, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

2001 Harvest, Hooked, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1997 Head Over Eels, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1996 Cesspool & To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

1995 With Friends Like These Who Need Enemas, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1994 Coitus Interruptus, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

          Break and Enter, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1992 No Frills, The Royal Institute of Architects, Brisbane

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019  New Woman, Museum of Brisbane, Queensland 

          Pets Are People Too, Bayside Arts & Culture Centre 

          Deakin Small Sculpture Prize, Deakin Art Gallery, Melbourne

2018  Craftivism: Dissident Objects & Subversive Forms, Shepparton Art Museum, touring nationally NETs Vic.

          On A Tangent, Horsham Regional Gallery, Victoria 

          Pairs, First Draft Gallery, Sydney 

2017  Sounding Histories, Mission To Seafarers, Docklands Melbourne

          We Die As We Live, St Vincent's Private Hospital, East Melbourne

2016  MUM, Stockroom Gallery, Kyneton, Melbourne 

          Ceremonial, Craft Victoria, Melbourne

2015  Performance Presence / Video Time, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide 

          Finitude, Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart

          Affiliated Text & Selfie Image Narrative Opiate,Cross Art Books, Sydney

          Treatment, Melbourne Water Western Treatment Plant, Werribee

2014  The f Word, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale

          New Photography From the Footpath, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne

          Knowing Me Knowing You, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne

2013  Artcycle: Environmental Art Award, Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne

          Backflip: Femisim and humour in contemporary art, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne

2011 The Rest is Silence, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne

          The Animal Gaze, Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery, Sheffield

          Seminário Internacional Arte e Natureza, Matilha Cultural, Sao Paulo, Brazil

          What is yours is mine, Linden - Centre for Contemporary Art

          Evidence of Absence, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne

          Selectively Revealed, an international touring exhibition presented by:

          Experimenta Media Arts and Asialink:

          Korea: 26 October &ndash 11 December 2011 - Aram Art Gallery, Seoul

          Taiwan: 11 February &ndash 13 May 2012 - National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts,Taipei

          Thailand: 4 June &ndash 21 July 2012 &ndash Chulalongkorn University Art Space, Bangkok

2010 Pulp, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

          Trouble set me free, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne

          The Memorial, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne

          The Portrait Exchange, Arts Project, Melbourne

2009 Tier Perspectiven (Animal Perspectives), Georg-Kolbe Museum, Berlin

           Tier Werden Mensch Werden (Becoming Animal &ndash Becoming Human) NGBK, Berlin

           BB3: gender-biology-society, Gallery Verkligheten, Umeå, Sweden

           Love Bites, Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart

           On the Line, Centre of Contemporary Photography, Melbourne

           Persuasion Equation, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts

           Testing Ground, fortyfivedownstairs Gallery, Melbourne

2008 The Animal Gaze, (touring show) Unit 2 Gallery and Metropolitan Works (London)

           Centre of Contemporary Art (Exeter) & Plymouth City Museum & Peninsula Arts Gallery 

           True Crime: Murder and Misdemeanour in Australian Art, Geelong Regional Gallery

           LOOP 08, Hotel Catalonia Ramblas de Barcelona, Video Art Festival, Spain

           The Letter Show, George Paton Gallery, Union House, University of Melbourne

           The Cancer Council Victoria Art Awards 2008, 15 W Gallery, Melbourne,

           Cube 37 Art Gallery, Frankston Art Centre, Ballarat & Warrnambool Art Gallery

            in praise of blandness, Faculty Gallery Monash Art & Design, Melbourne

            Womanfolk: songs from the valley below (Live performance with Martha McDonald), 

            Out of Bounds Conference, Monash University.

2007   Epiphanies, Victoria Park Gallery, Melbourne

             an edge meets an edge, Spectrum Project Space, Edith Cowen University, Perth, WA

2006   A4 Reunion Show, West Space, Melbourne

            Alot of Love Goin&rsquo Around, R.M.I.T. Project Space, Melbourne

           Army Brats, Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne

2005 The Raw and the Cooked, Blindside, Melbourne

          Truth Universally Acknowledged, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne.

2004 Suck: voices from the interior, Geelong Gallery, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 

           University of Melbourne & Moroondah Art Gallery

          Digital and Design Biennale, Melbourne Museum

2003 Drama is Conflict, Linden &ndash Centre for Contemporary Art

          Drawings from the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash Gallery, Caulfield

          On View, Fine Arts Building, Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University, Caulfield

2001 Artist x 3, The Gallery, Shepherds Market, Mayfair, London

          The Norrie, Slessor, Bell, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford

          Ready, Steady, Go, Ipswich Regional Gallery, Queensland

1996 Strata, MFA, Graduate Show, RMIT, Storey Hall

          Reference Points IV, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

          Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia

1995 Small Monuments, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane 

          Australia Felix, Benalla Easter Arts Festival, Benalla

1994 Group Women Drawing Show, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

          Windows, Metro Arts Gallery, Brisbane

          The 1994 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, Grafton Regional Gallery

          Six Artists from Bellas Gallery, Umbrella Studios, Townsville

1993 Political Bedrooms, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane

          Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

          Fearless/ Furchtlos, Forum Kunstund Schule, Gutersloh, Germany &

          Artestudio, Berganso, Italy

1992 Graduate Show, School of Arts Building, Brisbane

          Sextet, University of Western Nepean Campus, Sydney

          Epoch, Space Plentitude, Brisbane

Artist Residencies

2018  Residency - Centre of Applied Grief and Bereavement Research, RAW Labs, Royal Albert Wharf, London

2017-18 St Vincent's Hospital Artist Residency Program

2018  Doing Feminism/Sharing the World, Norma Redpath Residency, University of Melbourne 

                  2012-13 St Vincent's Hospital Artist Residency Program

2010 Australia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Board Greene Street Studio/Residency, New York

2000-01 Visiting Artist, Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford

1996 Studio 18, Residential Studio, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne

1994 Melville Haysom Residency, Queensland Art Gallery

Awards/Grant

2018 Australian Council Visual Arts Board Grant

2017 City of Melbourne Presentation Grant

2016 Australian Award for University Teaching

2015 Council of Australian University Libraries (CAUL) and Austrlain Society of Authors (ASA) Fellowship

2013 Arts Victoria Creative Partnership Award-Good Practice Recognition- Community Engagment Peroject "Flower Tower", St Vincent's Hospital

2013 ACU Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning

2012 ACU Good Practice in Assessment Prize

2011 Faculty of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award, ACU

2010 ACU Research Grant (Present conference paper in Toronto)

2009 ACU International Travel Grant (Presenting conference paper at NGBK Symposium, Berlin)

2008 Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Excellence in Doctoral Thesis, Monash University

          Victorian Cancer Council Art Award â&rdquo&euro Outstanding Visual Arts Entry

          City of Melbourne, Arts Grant, Group Exhibition Paradise Lost

          ACU International Travel Grant (Present conference paper at Kings College London)

2007 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Monash University, Caulfield Campus

          Monash Travel Grant (Present conference paper in New York)

2006 Arts Victoria, Creation Grant, Group Exhibition &ndash Army Brats

          Monash Publication Grant (Army Brats Catalogue)

2005 City of Melbourne, Arts Grant, Group Exhibition &ndash Army Brats

          Monash Publication Grant (Raw and the Cooked Catalogue)

2003-06 Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship

1996 Professional Development Grant, Arts Queensland

1994 Melville Haysom Scholarship, Queensland Art Gallery

Curated Exhibition

2019 FEM-aFFINITY, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne.  NETs Victoria 2020-21 National Touring Exhibition 

2011 What's Yours Is Mine, (with Jan Duffy Program Director Linden) Linden &ndash Centre for Contemporary Art

2010 Trouble Set Me Free, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne

2007 Epiphanies, Victoria Park Gallery, Melbourne

2006 Army Brats, Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne

2005 The Raw and the Cooked, Blindside, Melbourne

Conferences

2018 Death Relics and Reflections: facilitating socially-engaged mark and object making with palliative care staff in hospice settings. Death & Culture II Conference, 6- 7 September 2018, Department of Sociology, University of York, UK.

2018 Creativity in Health Care Settings: Artist in Residency as Community Engagement at Caritas Christi Hospice, Melbourne, Australia. Facing Death Creatively: Art & Art Therapy in the Age of Austerity Symposium, Friday November 9th 2018, St Christopher's Hospice, London

2018 "Foraging for Feminism: excavating feminist histories and redefining feminist legacies at Arts Project Australia." in Women Art and Feminsim in Australia since 1970 Symposium VCA, Melbourne University Feb 20-23, 2018 as part of Doing Feminis/Sharing the World. ARC Fellowship led by Professor Anne Marsh.

2013 "Add water when dry:  Resurrecting bouquets as corporeal relics, melancholic rituals and community engagment at Caritas Christi Hospice". 1st Global Conference: Time, Space and the Body 11-13 February Sydney, Australia organised by Inter-Disciplinary.Net (Panel Topic: Bodily and Temporal Aesthetics)

2012 "Flower Power: Creative Art in Health Care Settings- Artist in Residency as community engagement at St Vincent's Hospital Caritas Christi Hospice, Kew, VIC". The Art of Good Health and Wellbeing International Arts and Health Conference: 26-29 November 2012, Notre Dame University Freemantle Western Australia. (Panel Topic: Primary and Acute Care)

2010 "Cooking up Crimes and Maternal Misdemeanours: from food ritual to transgressive performances". The Hunger Artist: Food and the Arts, Interdisciplinary Conference: 19-21 August, 2010 Victoria College, University of Toronto, Canada

2009 "The Edible Complex: Cooking up crimes and maternal misdemeanours". International Symposium Creative Practice/Creative Research: Materiality,Process,Performativity, York St John University, U.K. April,15-17 (Panel Topic: Unruly Objects: Materiality / Process / Performativity)

"Performing Animality: Swimming with Eels and Squid Ink Erasure". Tier-Werden, Mensch-Werden: Symposium, 9-10 May NGBK Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin (Panel Topic: Animalische Identitäten)

2008 "Spit Spot: Crimes against maternity, nannies in the Motherland and other pig tales". Annual Conference of the International Studies Group, King&rsquos College London, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, 7-8 July (Panel Topic: Antipodean Animal)

"Disturbing the Peace or Peaceful Disturbances?: Stealth interventions in the public sphere". AAANZ 2008 Conference, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, 4-6 December (Panel Topic: Private Agendas / Public Spaces)

2007 "Purging the Criminal Compulsion: A Ritualisation of Deviant Female Acts". 95th Annual CAA Conference, New York, 14-17 February (Panel Topic: Evil by Design: Subverting Female Stereotypes)

Performing Animality: Swimming with Eels and Squid Ink Erasure, Animals & Society II, Considering Animals, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 3-6 July (Panel Topic: Animals in Contemporary Art)

2006 Muhl Conference, Australian Centre of Moving Image, Melbourne Collections Australian National Gallery, Canberra Grafton Regional Gallery, Grafton Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

 

Publications

Catherine Bell, Chapter 18: Bringing Daphne Back: Archival Research As Artistic Collaboration. Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change, Edinburgh, UK: Museums Etc Ltd, 2017

Catherine Bell, We Die As We Live, Exhibition Catalogue, Victoria: City of Melbourne, 2017 https://issuu.com/cebell/docs/catherine_bell____we_die_as_we_live

Catherine Bell, Artist as Undertaker: Flower Tower and Community Art at Caritas Christi Hospice, Melbourne. ANZJAT: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Arts Therapy, Vol. 10, No.1, 2015 pp 43-55

http://chasr.acu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/11/Catherine-Bell-Artist-as-Undertaker.pdf

Catherine Bell, The Remains of the Day, Melbourne, Victoria: Sutton Gallery, 2014 https://issuu.com/cebell/docs/catherine_bell_catalogue_sutton_gal

Catherine Bell, Street Strollers of New York. Melbourne, Victoria: Monash Gallery of Art, 2014. https://issuu.com/mgaphotography/docs/bell_cat_web_issuu

Catherine Bell, "Add water when dry: Resurrecting bouquets as corporeal relics, melancholic rituals and community engagement at Caritas Christi Hospice" in Exploring Bodies in Time and Space, Inter-Disciplinary Press: Oxford, United Kingdom, 2014, pp 227-235

Catherine Bell, & Cathy Staughton: A walk on the wild side, Cathy Staughton's Wondrous Imaginarium, The Leonard Joel Series of Art Catalogues, ed. C. Daye, Melbourne: Arts Project Australia, 2013, pp 8-11

Catherine Bell, Cooking up Crimes and Maternal Misdemeanours: from food ritual to transgressive performances. The Hunger Artist: Food and the Arts Issue 15, Winter 2011 in Double Dialogues, School of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University: Melbourne, 2011 http://www.doubledialogues.com/issue_fifteen/bell.html

Catherine Bell, Performing Animality: Swimming with eels and squid ink erasurure. Animal Identities: The animal in perspective, Online conference paper publication: http://becoming-animal-becoming-human.animal-studies.org/html/conference.html

Catherine Bell, Dad's Army, catalogue essay, Army Brats, Monash University: Melbourne, 2006 pp 11-15

Catherine Bell, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Art: Masculinities, Vol. 6, No.1, March 2006, Book Review, p 38

Academic Curriculum Vitae

2011-13    Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, ACU

                  National Course Director of Bachelor of Visual Art & Design Cluster Faculty of Arts & Sciences

 2010-13   Academic staff member (Vic) to the Board of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

 2009/12   Visual Arts Representative, Arts Victoria Advisory and

                   Assessment Panel member for Arts Development and Creation

2009-13   Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Fine Arts, Monash University

2007-12   Australian Catholic University Bachelor of Visual Art & Design Course Coordinator

2004-13   Lecturer in Visual Arts and ACU Gallery Coordinator

2008-9     Lecturer B (.6) Australian Catholic University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, St Patrick’s Campus 

2004-7     Sessional Visual Arts Lecturer, Australian Catholic University, St Patrick’s Campus 

2003-07   Tutor, Art Theory, Art & Design Department, Monash University, Caulfield Campus 

2003-08    Lecturer, Studio Arts, Fine Art Department, Monash University, Caulfield Campus 

1990-93    Co-Editor & contributing writer. Artichoke, quarterly art journal, QUT Press

Memberships 

2010-13 Academic staff member (Victoria) to the Board of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

2009/ 2012 Visual Arts Representative, Arts Victoria Advisory and Assessment Panel member for Arts Development and Creation

2009-2013 Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Fine Arts, Monash University