Linden New Art presents the first survey exhibition of Naarm/Melbourne artist Catherine Bell, spanning more than 35 years of practice. OUTLIER is the most comprehensive exhibition of Bell’s work to date.
Bringing together more than 40 works across a range of media, the exhibition traces the full trajectory of an artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans traditional gallery spaces, as well as health and care settings.
OUTLIER is the second in Linden New Art’s series recognising the contribution of mid-career artists to Australia’s contemporary visual arts ecology. The exhibition encompasses Bell’s drawings, objects and performance videos of the 1990s, which engage with questions of gender and the body.
It continues through to her recent carvings, made from florist oasis foam, deodorant sticks and soap, which memorialise loved ones. It also includes her ongoing collaboration with Arts Project Australia artist Cathy Staughton, known as The Two Cathies, is also represented.
Across these bodies of work, Bell has engaged with the major and often messy milestones of life: birth, family, relationships and motherhood, through to ageing, death and remembering. Her work also considers what it means to be a woman artist.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the first monograph on Bell’s practice, featuring newly commissioned texts by Jennifer Higgie, Dr Stephen Zagala and exhibition curator Hamish Sawyer, who says of the project: “Catherine’s practice is impossible to pigeonhole; she is an artist who has never rested on her laurels or shied away from the big conversations and experiences that shape our lives,” said Sawyer.
“Perhaps this is why her work has not received the attention it is due. I am honoured to be working with Catherine on this exhibition at Linden, which played an important role in the earlier part of her career; and which brings many projects together for the first time, including works that have rarely been seen,” added Sawyer.
“OUTLIER feels like a homecoming, but also a chance to see my practice in an entirely new light,” says Bell. “Linden has been a vital part of my artistic career, championing some of my most ambitious video performances and installations over many years.”
“Bringing together more than three decades of work, this exhibition reveals unexpected connections and opens up new conversations across bodies of work that have never been seen together in this way. I’m thrilled to be working with Hamish Sawyer and Vincent Alessi to realise a survey of this scale, made possible by their commitment to supporting mid-career artists.”
“OUTLIER reflects a practice that confronts the more difficult dimensions of human experience, while embracing collaborative and socially engaged projects that have taken my work in unexpected and transformative directions.” said Bell.
Catherine Bell is an artist, curator and educator, and a Professor in the National School of Arts and Humanities at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. For more than two decades she has also directed the ACU Melbourne Gallery, where she has led an exhibition program committed to social justice, inclusion, community engagement and representation of marginalised voices.
Her practice encompasses art in healthcare settings, feminist archival interventions, neurodivergent/neurotypical artistic collaboration, and the cultural, artistic and ritual dimensions of death, remembrance and memorialisation. Her socially engaged projects explore how care can be expressed through relational and situated creative practice, including participatory workshops that foster death literacy.
Bell has completed two year-long residencies, in the oncology ward at St Vincent’s Hospital and at Caritas Christi Hospice in Melbourne, where she developed and facilitated workshops with staff, patients and their families to encourage open conversation and reflection on death.
Since 2009, Bell has collaborated with Arts Project Australia artist Cathy Staughton as The Two Cathies. Their work together includes numerous projects and four shared residencies. In their most recent Creative Australia-funded project, Dog Robot Space Star (2023), they partnered with the RMIT Health Transformation Lab and became the first Australian artists to work with a Boston Dynamics robot dog.
Bell curated the NETS-supported national touring exhibition Fem-affinity (2020–21), which examined inclusive practice as a feminist mode of cultural production. She was awarded a Gertrude Contemporary Studio Residency (2020–23). Catherine Bell is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.
OUTLIER
Linden New Art, 26 Acland Street, St Kilda
Exhibition: 21 November 2026 – 7 February 2027
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.lindenarts.org for details.
Images: Catherine Bell, Death Squad (2020-21), hand-carved, florist oasis foam. 30 parts. Installation detail. Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne – photo by Andrew Curtis | Catherine Bell, Coitus Interruptus (1992-93), pencil on paper, wooden frame, 13 parts, 94 x 73 cm each. Installation detail. Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery Melbourne – photo by Andrew Curtis | Catherine Bell, Felt is the Past Tense of Feel (2006), performance documented on video. Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne – photo by Christian Capurro