artist bio
malcolm richards the gulf 122x86cm oil on canvas
For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by movement, both in art and in life. My work explores that movement and how things are rarely at rest.
This kinetic search is often expressed in large drawings, frequently in that most unforgiving and frantic of media, felt tip pen or charcoal and conte where one essentially drags a burnt stick or compressed dirt across a plain surface. The viewer may see search lines, mistakes and the structure of the picture at a glance, and thus the work can be read from the first mapping marks to final highlight. Although potentially unrefined, these works frequently have a power and a joy that may otherwise be lost with erasure or correction.
In contrast to the busy rush of the drawings, my other works, painted in oil, search for meaning and movement in a quieter but, I hope, equally insistent manner. My paintings frequently involve simple household functions such as the making or consuming of food. Often an object’s perspective is altered so that nothing is settled, nothing is still. Frequently a hand or partial figure may be included in the painting acknowledging that food or the duties of life are done by considered and often caring workers. Those deliberate visual metaphors of daily life remain at the heart of the finished piece. I have always found the interpersonal events of life to be most inspirational. There are small heroes on every street and they are generous.
The art may be metaphorical, perhaps an act as insignificant as passing a slice of pie to a child, but the act of sharing is the emotional glue of us all.
In recent times I’ve been putting a lot of energy and time into working on illustrated books and discovered that they allow the art to tell a least half the story and have been refining my work in that setting. Far from being a simpler way of communicating through drawing I have found the demands of the format to be very challenging but very rewarding if the key to a good illustration can be found and realised.
©malcolmrichardsart2016
design: davidwardmarketing