Green Sea, oil on paper, 35cm x 37cm (framed)
Into the depths the dragon flew, oil on board, 90cm x 60cm
Slate Print 4, relief print on paper, 69cm x 87cm (framed)
Richard Corbett
Richard Corbett graduated from Norwich School of Art in 1994 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Printmaking). He continued to exhibit while teaching in Suffolk for ten years, but in 2005 he made the move to try the life of a full time artist by setting up a studio in Monmouth. Richard's work has been exhibited all over the UK, including Claire Galleries, Birmingham; Fusion Gallery, Bristol; Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon; Wrexham Arts Centre; The Affordable Art Fair; Brighton Art Fair; and at festivals including the Aldeburgh Music Festival, Abergavenny Food Festival and Canterbury. His paintings are held in many private and corporate collections, and his prints are widely sort after by contemporary print collectors.
Richard's work has been described as ethereal, generous, beautiful and evocative. He does not work from the landscape directly, but uses his materials with joy and intensity to try and reveal the emotions we feel when surrounded by nature. He is searching for the 'inscape', as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins saw it – the form that evokes the spiritual within us.
People often see different things to me in my work, but most say that it evokes seas, skies and rivers. That is not surprising, as my whole life has been based around water – first Portsmouth, then the muddy rivers of Suffolk, and now the Wye Valley. I always holiday by the sea, and most days I sit and stare at the sky above Monmouth. I have my camera with me always and use the photographs to inform my work, so the marks and colours in my art start very definitely with nature. This is the starting point, but I never truly know where my work is heading and so the results often surprise me, taking me to a new place. Hopefully, it also takes the viewer to a new place, encouraging them to see the unseen or triggering memories of places they have been.
Richard Corbett, 2008