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Philip Richardson
Painting as opposed to 'illustration' at its purest level is the poetic organisation of colour harmony and composition. The result is an aesthetic experience of our senses. The representational element is really quite unimportant though it is bound to effect our final judgement.
I am only interested in the discipline of painting through the exploration of landscape and still life; I find I need a visual input, though the resulting picture' is not my primary intention.
I ask you to try to look at my paintings beyond their subject matter. You will find a language of paint texture, brush marks, and colour. Similar to music this is an international language.
Nevertheless I still feel accurate observation of the subject matter to be important as my source material. 1 strive not to distort drawing or colour, both of which as I observe are I find adequately rich and unusual.
I am not concerned with issues, neither am I trying to shock, tell a narrative, make any social / political statement, or any other contemporary irrelevance that will disturb the timeless purity of painting. Art should transcend these current obligations.
My school was St. Georges's, Harpenden, England. There 1 was fortunate to have had a great art teacher who set me on my way, he taught me to start exploring the intellectual elements in paintings.
I went to art school at St. Albans & Liverpool, where I obtained my degree. At foundation course 1 had two inspirational tutors, one taught me to question, the other taught me about passion. My tutor on my degree course thought I had no talent and kept telling me so - this taught me the anger required to survive.
Consequently four years at art school seemed enough, I was anxious to get out and paint in the real world away from the apathy of art students, so I rejected the idea of a post graduate course. Instead of painting large landscapes in London for two years I returned to St. Albans to teach life drawing for three years.
In 1979 moved to Italy to paint full time, working on landscape and trying to learn about light and colour.
Ten years ago I moved to Northern Spain to work from a different landscape. I have also developed still life further. The latter I have always considered an intense and controllable discipline.
I only started showing my work in galleries eight years ago, prior to that I felt I wasn't ready.