Earth / Arts

Traces Chris Bell

As Chris Bell has shifted his focus to the small and often ephemeral, he has increasingly made abstract art. His seemingly simple pictures hold our gaze. They draw us back to look again.

Tim Bonyhady
An image with pink and mauve tones of a pothole and grinder stones.

About the project

TRACES is celebrated Tasmanian photographer Chris Bell’s sixth book. OUTSIDE THE BOX / Earth Arts Rights is partnering with Chris to publish and distribute TRACES under our imprint ‘An Artist’s Own Book’.

A passionate naturalist, Chris has been photographing wild places and wild things for over 40 years. Born in Singleton, New South Wales, he moved to Tasmania in 1972 to join the campaign to save Lake Pedder. He is a deeply committed conservationist and was a founding member of both The Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian National Parks Association.

He has had five books published of his photography and writing: A Time to Care: Tasmania’s Endangered Wilderness (1980); Beyond The Reach: Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park (1990); The Noblest Stone: Carnarvon National Park (1995); Primal Places – Tasmania (2002) and The Tarkine (2012). Chris has previously worked largely with a Linhof Technikardan 4×5 camera and now also uses more modern digital systems.

An image with delicate pink and blue tones of assorted water rushes and reeds and their reflections.
An image of bright orange lichen and white mineral salt stains on rock.
A close up image of a sand beach with an underground stream terminus creating highly patterned impressions in the sand.

Publication

Together with a selection of approximately 50 of Chris’s finest images, TRACES features an essay by Emeritus Professor Tim Bonyhady, one of Australia’s foremost environmental lawyers and cultural historians. Chris also writes a short and powerful reflection on his love of the natural world and describes the very first moment when, as a boy standing in the plunging gorges of Kanangra Walls in New South Wales, he was mesmerised by ‘hazy-blue space and dizzying cliffs’ and despite having no words at the time he records that ‘those impressions would forever remain with me.’

This short-run, large format (282mm × 320mm [landscape]), bespoke publication will be hard case cloth bound with 120 pages printed full-colour on a fully certified FSC coated paper stock. Pre-orders for TRACES will open in July 2025 with delivery scheduled for September 2025. Profits from the book will support protection of Tasmania’s wild and endangered environments.

Exhibition

The release of TRACES will coincide with a major exhibition of the same name of Chris Bell’s photographs at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania in September 2025, curated by Jon Addison.

A black and white portrait photograph of Chris Bell with his large format Linhof Technikardan 4x5 camera.

Pre-Order
TRACES

You can subscribe to our newsletter to receive both notifications about progress on the design and production of TRACES, and advance news on how to secure a copy.

PRE-ORDERS: JULY 2025
DELIVERY: SEPTEMBER 2025

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A close up image of two fresh orange, yellow and white Banksia flowers, that were dislodged by a cockatoo, lying amongst wind swept leaves, bark and weathered flower cones on the ground.
Images by Chris Bell