Media Releases

Gordon Richards

Gordon Richards celebrates the simple pleasures in works of art that bring visual delight to the viewer. His universe is one of light and radiant energy. “I am always attracted to the light dancing between objects and glinting off surfaces. Most of my images have a strong point of light. Light also refers to the subjects I convey through paint and charcoal,” he smiles. “The compositions are a bit like impromptu drawings or visual ramblings based on musings of events past and present.”

Richards’ recurring motif of the gorgeous blonde is usually present in her signature triangular dress. Sometimes gleeful with arms outstretched, sometimes pensive, her form is simplified to its essential lines. Apart from any narrative content, Richards conveys a feeling of elation through tactile, sensuous surfaces. His painterly approach is one of immediacy and verve. There is no semblance of restraint or deliberation. Eccentric perspectives and exaggerated motifs set against heavily textured white grounds express the exuberance of being alive. Lustrous in their layers of rich colour, the paintings seem a declaration of personal freedom.

We are ever charmed by Richards’ optimistic enthusiasm – his vision of interconnectivity where reverie and introspection alternate. In an iconography of hope and jubilation, Richards communicates a genuine, experienced ‘joie de vivre’. There is a sense of liberation and contentment that has the power to lift one from mundane cares. We want to participate in the exuberance with which he embraces life and all that makes it worth living. Richards might well describe his art-making with the words of Henri Matisse, “I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have about life and my way of translating it.”

Before painting his first canvas in the early 90’s, Richards was a highly acclaimed chef and innovative restaurant owner in Bendigo, Victoria. In 1991 he relocated to Noosa, Queensland where he famously exchanged his chef’s cap and kitchen utensils for the proverbial artist’s beret and paintbrushes. Subsequently he was Sydney-based for 10 years and now currently works from a rural studio retreat in the NSW Southern Highlands.