Curated by David Richardson

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

EXPRESSIVE SYMBOL-SURREALISM - A ONE MAN MOVEMENT:
My name is David Richardson (born 1970), and I live and paint in Cambridge UK. I orginally arrived here in 2000 to conduct some Ph.D research at the Plant Science Department, Cambridge University in the area of Evolutionary Plant Physiology for the American Multinational Agrochemical Company, Monsanto www.richardsonphd.blogspot.com. However after encountering a number of religious visions I turned away from science to art to become a painter. Painting being a subject I'd had a formal training in and had some success at, during the late 1980's and early 90's, training under the Neo-Expressionist Andrew Paisley in Bournemouth. Neo-Expressionism developed as a reaction against the Conceptual and Mininal art of the 1970s. It returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in an abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies. From this background I developed my visual ideas and style I have today.

If I could properly categorise my art in just a few words then I would call it Expressive Symbol-Surrealism as it crosses several major artist styles. What makes the style Expressive is the colours I use, as I generally choose stark, high toned, primary and secondary colours, and put them together discordantly (colours on dog-leg on the colour wheel) to create an 'other worldly dream-like' effect. In some of my work I use a black background as a phenomenal space to place unusual characters in, that have become personified, coded expressions, of human emotion at an archetypal level, fitting my work into the category of Symbolism. In my investigations into the mind, I have managed to construct the kingdom of Mr Mole (my painting alter-ego), a vehicle to carry messages from the subconscious, to the world. This psychoanalytical aspect of my work which involves dream interpretation is Surrealist in nature. Ultimately, I want my work to be an aesthetically pleasing, self contained story, that the observer can visually read with assistance of the title and description, and by the end of their observance of my work, they are not left feeling stupid.

Currently I'm working on a collection of 12 New Testament inspired paintings that I have called 'The 12 Apostles of Cambridge'.

A recent achievement of mine, has been for one of my painting's (Going high version #5) to appear on the front cover of October's edition 2012 of The British Journal of Psychiatry.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/201/4.cover-expansion

Also one of my paintings appeared on page 2 of International Art Journal 'Raw Vision' issue 78 2013

http://issuu.com/raw-vision/docs/rv78?mode=window

• Total Items: 38

Categories: Painting, Drawing