Richard studied art whilst completing a BA at Cambridge University.
After graduating, he moved into advertising and has worked for renowned agency M&C Saatchi for the past 30 years.
Alongside this, Richard's second career is as an artist, travel writer and photographer. He criss-crosses the world seeking beauty, and perfecting 'the art of the dally'. Lingering in happy, atmospheric places to soak up their spirit, he assiduously captures his observations through the media of paint, still image and the written word.
You can see and read his perspectives on the perfect 'two dozen places to dally' here in View with a Room.
His mixed-media travelogue sketchbooks are visual explorations of place. Created in situ in concertina style sketchbooks, the works unfold and intermingle.
Richard records the fabric and feeling of each place, using a mixture of torn paper fragments, Japanese watercolours, gouache, local ephemera, plus pen and ink. His work is a symphony of textures, colours, rhythms and harmonies, charting the margin between representational and decorative, abstract and accurate, truthful and expressive.
Richard's life works are studies in movement and stillness.
A key feature of drawing from life is the static pose, held for a measured period of time. By contrast, Richard’s work seeks to convey a fresh sense of the moving, thinking, living human figure.
Much of his life work is about movement. He layers up multiple drawings to form a cohesive story. The dialogue between the figures becomes the subject of the whole piece.
In other work, Richard deploys a 'pentimento' technique of ghost lines - vestiges of previous poses - which enhance the figure's stance and echo movement and poise.
Richard favours loose media over which he has only limited control - Indian ink, compressed charcoal, boot polish and so on. On top of these he overlays more precise media - pen & ink, fine charcoal, chalk, pastel - to wrestle back control.
Richard's most recent work builds in collage, using fragments of previous drawings recycled into this new form.
Richard’s photography has an abstract quality.
His subjects are often ordinary objects rendered extraordinary by carefully observed shape, light, shadow or texture. The key feature is not the subject matter itself, but the way it looks.
Richard's photographs also encompass another of his passions; travel. Getting away from the familiar helps him see the remarkable, unusual and beautiful in ordinary things. Bemused bystanders often observe him snapping walls, dustbins, or other equally 'mundane' things.
Richard’s work is for sale. Click on each image for details, or get in touch here if you see something you like or would like to see more.
Richard also accepts commissions, which make a particularly personal gift. Details here.
