New Work 2009
“In Richards’s work, the mixing of abstraction, everyday objects and site-specificity has long addressed the relationship between human experience and place. Historical context is also a factor in his current work. The outward appearance of his latest paintings and sculptures is reminiscent of 1960s hard-edged abstraction. Yet closer consideration of the paintings in particular reveals a systematized approach to composition, contravening the role of formal invention as a guarantee of authenticity in modern art.
The optical illusion of the paintings is replaced by actual space and form in the sculptures, enabling a more straightforward spatial consciousness. Together, the paintings and sculptures explore the role of architecture in creating and informing our experience of the world. The paintings reveal the basis of architectural form in conventions of graphic representation such as isomorphic drawing, highlighting the role of geometry as a reference point for the field.”
Extract from Abstraction, architecture and the everyday in the recent work of Trevor Richards by Dr Carolyn Barnes
Photography Victor France
