Robin Richmond : On Solitary Fields

6-29^th March 2014

Private View: Wednesday 5^th March 2014 from 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday 18^th March at 7pm

“Robin Richmond is one of the finest painters working in Britain today” 

Art Review

“Robin Richmond has surely found herself a secure space within the upper echelons of the present incarnation of British Landscape painting”

 Julian Freeman, British Art Journal

Robin Richmond’s work has always been about the physical act of remembering. Her landscapes appear as if glimpsed fleetingly, like mirages with only trace elements of the reality behind seeping through. Swathes of layered colour allude to sky or soil, creating atmospheric, half remembered impressions of horizons, lakes and fields. All are definite places in the world; each painting is precisely titled as an existing location, however we view them as if through a veil or a dream.

Although produced from numerous studies made in nature, these paintings attempt to evoke a sense of place rather than making a literal transcription of a particular environment. They tread a delicate balance between figuration and abstraction, as much recalling an emotional response to the landscape as its factual contours.

[1] The majority of her current works are inspired by French, Sicilian and Italian landscapes. Amongst these are the characteristic skies and textured grounds which are recognisable as archetypal depictions of locations in these countries. Many of the works in this show are made from an isolated studio in South-West France, next to the forested Lake Rouffiac (left) which so often appears as a subject in her paintings.
	[2]

The title of the show, On Solitary Fields is taken from A Light Exists in Spring a much loved poem by Emily Dickinson describing Dickinson’s almost religious experience of nature, specifically in relation to a particular quality of light experienced in Spring. When alone in nature Robin Richmond too is touched briefly by this light whilst in “solitary fields”, a transient experience which she attempts to encapsulate in her paintings.

Robin Richmond lives and works in London and South-West France. She is the author of 7 books and is a regular contributor to numerous arts journals. She has work in a number of museum collections, as well as many private and corporate collections. She attained both her Fine Art BA and her MA in Art History at Chelsea School of Art. She has been a fellow and Artist in Residence at Yale University, USA since 2003. Last year her work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Château D’Excideuil.

For more information see the gallery website for the exhibition: http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/richmond14/title.htm

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[1] Shadows Hold Their Breath, Reflection, Lake Rouffiac, France, Autumn, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 102 x 152cm

[2] Agrigento, Sicily, 2013, acrylic and lava sand on canvas, 66 x 82cm