Gordon Richards’ universe is full of light and radiant energy. He is a painter whose creative impulse is essentially life affirming and celebratory.
“I am always attracted to the light dancing between objects and glinting off surfaces. Most of my images have a strong point of light. The compositions are a bit like impromptu drawings or visual ramblings based on musings of events past and present. ‘Light’ can also refer to the subjects I convey through paint and charcoal.”
Aside from the light-hearted nature of his imagery, Richards also expresses a feeling of elationthrough tactile, sensuous surfaces that scintillate with refracted light. His recurring motif of the gorgeous blonde is again present, sometimes gleeful and sometimes pensive in her signature black tights and red dress. Revelry and introspection alternate. An ambience of quietude pervades as she bends to contemplate a bloom or tentatively offer a tasty morsel to a kookaburra.In other works the tenor is thoroughly more active with the damsel toppling from her bicycle, limbs akimbo and flowers airborne. Love Match depicts her strenuously asserting a competitive edge. A dash of humour can be seen in Save Yourself as the now umbrella-toting blonde addresses an Indian Runner duck who is quite at home, ‘thank you very much’, in the wet conditions.
Richards’ painterly approach is one of immediacy and verve. Eccentric perspectives and exaggerated forms against heavily textured white grounds express the exuberance of being alive. Lustrous in their layerings of rich colour, the paintings seem a declaration of personal freedom. In an iconography of hope and celebration, Richards communicates a genuine, experienced ‘joie de vivre’ that has the power to lift us from the cares of the mundane world.
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.
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