Anna Louise Richardson | The Good

Anna Louise Richardson is an artist and freelance curator investigating rural Australian identity and associated mythologies. Richardson works primarily in charcoal and graphite on cement fibreboard, using a realistic approach, flattened perspective, cut-out shapes and manipulated scale to amplify the subject matter.

Her artistic practice reveals ideas of intergenerational exchange, parenthood and signifiers of identity based on her experiences of life in rural Australia living and working on a multi-generation beef cattle farm. The complexities of human relationships with the natural world and the intergenerational qualities of these relationships are driving themes throughout her practice. Richardson’s work depicts animals as a recurring motif to examine shared values on the role of animals in culture, commerce and ecology and how these are shaped through different narratives.

Richardson shares a studio on the farm with her husband Abdul-Rahman Abdullah – a Malay/Australian Muslim artist whose sculptural practice draws on the narrative capacity of animals to explore the intersection of politics, cultural identity and the natural world. Their three children are the seventh generation to grow up on the property. Richardson’s work is often autobiographical, revealing intergenerational connections with the land. Her parents manage the farm business, and her late mother was a veterinarian, artist and furniture designer maker who ran Megan Christie Designs from a converted shearing shed studio.

Richardson holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Curtin University of Technology, Perth and has been a practicing artist since 2014.