My Artist Statement

 

Where does an artist begin? At the beginning I suppose. I was born in England, the middle child to an ordained minister in the Church of England. The church was our life. We moved to the United States when I was eleven. I was the head acolyte which was a strange experience because I felt like an outsider yet I loved the mysticism and visions it gave me. The traditional religious stories and beliefs I was exposed to were very different to the visual images I enjoyed and created. From, Andrea Mantegna's emotional St. Sebastian as one source of inspiration, and H.R.Giger's fantasy as another, emerged my St. Sebastian. Clad in a black leather bondage suit complete with straps and buckles, fixed to a metal column and pierced with hypodermic needles attached to tubes running back into the cylinder he is bound to. My religious expression continues.

H.R. Giger inspires me with his demented elegance, Salavador Dali encourages me to take my viewer to an alternate universe, Caravaggio spurs me to use strong values to pull in my viewer, and just as Yves Tanguy leaves me speechless I strive for the same.

My artwork begins as a concept, vision, or statement to the viewer. Often the message is obvious and other times more subtle. My mental image and overall intended mood of the work guides me. My work is deliberate and bold, illustrative but expressive. I move while I work, walking back and forth from the canvas, squinting my eyes to illuminate the values and exclude the details. When am I finished? Well I imagine a writer asks themselves "have I said what I needed to say?" I ask myself the same question.

Richard