Image: Darren Bell, Uncle Wes Marne inside Travelling Colony by Brook Andrew, at the Blacktown Native Institution Site, 2014, courtesy Darren Bell
Darren Bell Shoots From the Hip
Opening event: Friday 28 April 2023
Exhibition: 27 April to 3 June 2023
The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre
Blacktown Arts are thrilled to present a collection of portraits by western Sydney-based Ngunnawal and Yuin photographer and artist, Darren Bell alongside Mervyn Bishop: celebrating one of Australia’s most prolific photographers.
Darren’s unique style of photography captures portraits of western Sydney Elders, knowledge holders and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Many of the portraits are of Darren’s friends and depict an intimacy and closeness. They allow us into the world of Darren’s communities that are rarely seen in mainstream media or exhibitions.
On Saturday 27 May, presented as part of the Blacktown City Festival, Darren will be at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre capturing photos for Family Photographs with Darren Bell.
Places are limited and bookings essential.
Artist Bio
Darren Bell is a First Nations artist and western Sydney resident who held his first exhibition in 2010 with Blacktown Arts. The following year he was featured in a Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative exhibition. He was included in Cold Eels and Distant Thoughts in Paddington and had his first solo exhibition at DNA Gallery in Chippendale in 2013.
Darren’s artworks are held in state and private collections, and he was a finalist in the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize every year from 2012 to 2015. At the Blacktown Native Institution Artist Camps in 2014 and 2015, Bell took countless photographs of people.
Image: Darren Bell by Joshua Morris
Supported by Blacktown City Council and Blacktown Arts.
Blacktown Arts is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
