Ruth Richmond
Degree: MA Drawing
University: Wimbledon College of Art
Graduation Year: 2017
New Blood Art Commentary
Selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020, for Ruth Richmond, negative space is just as potent as any mark made. In harmonious compositions, Richmond deftly fuses both suspended abstract forms and eerily truthful landscapes. Influenced by nature and the invigoration of movement, her work carries a robust energy that seems to imbue each form with its own rhythm. Whether a closely observed vista, or an abstraction of cell forms, Richmond aims to render dynamism at its essence – no matter how impossible to capture. Her silkscreen prints take this even further, for example, see how “Sunrise over El Pilar” uses minimal colour to grasp at light before it breaks across the sky. Characterised by loose swivelling forms and intricate mark making, her work brings movement to the forefront.
Artist Statement
‘Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.’ Le Corbusier.
My artworks are fragments of traces suspended in space and memory. Stimulated by the emotion and experiences of the materials, the paper and my memory of feelings whilst being active, particularly whilst I am walking in the countryside. Walking changes volumes of air in space which is constantly reforming as I, the subject, move through it altering the perspective and meaning of my activity. Whilst drawing I am seeking the moments of FLOW (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi B. 1934) and recapturing the essence of this as experienced whilst carefree and moving through the space outdoors.
This space alludes as much to the time between experiencing the subconscious spiritual moment when walking and the engagement between me and the materials. The marks I make are suspended between the memory and the touch of material on paper, the marks representing this are a combination of lines that achieve the space, and move it, changing its structure and composition. I push the drawing materials around the paper’s surface and use this ‘negative’ space I achieve to work in conjunction with the marks. I am the conduit through which the ideas form and these become marks on paper, visible to others. The thoughts and ideas evolving with the help of the materials. The drawing animates the viewer’s emotions, a communication from the artist to the viewer. Without marks there is no shape to the space and without space there is nowhere for the marks to take shape, it is a symbiotic relationship. In my subconscious ideas and memories float around between the space of thoughts. Drawing allows me to order these thoughts and have a means of communicating them to someone else.
Group Exhibitions
(2023) Evening Standard Art Prize 2023, Cromwell Place, London
(2023) HOME, The Department Store, Brixton, London
(2022) Deben Soundings Project, ArtSpace, Woodbridge, Suffolk
(2022) The Society of Graphic Fine Art, Mall Gallery, London
(2022) ArtGarden, ArtGarden, Cambridgeshire
(2022) Sixty Drawings + 10, The Whittaker Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester
(2022) Oysterland, No Format, London
(2022) About the Size of It, Eastcliffe House, Essex
(2021) Definitions of Drawing, Sunny Bank Mills, Leeds
(2021) The Society of Graphic Fine Art, Mall gallery, London
(2021) Figurative Art Now, Mall Gallery, London
(2021) Timeframe, No Format, London
(2020) Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing prize, Trinity buoy Wharf/ Cooper Gallery/Drawing Projects, London/Dundee/Trowbridge/Bournmouth
(2020) Borders, Firstsite, Colchester
(2020) Fifty Bees, Black Arts, Frome, Somerset
(2019) Open Selection, The Minories, Colchester
(2019) Waveney Valley Sculpture Trail, Waveney Valley, Beccles, Norfolk
(2019) Out of the Wood, Bleddfa Art Centre, Wales
(2019) Snapshot, No Format Gallery, London
(2019) Cabinet Collections, Espacio gallery, 159 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 7DG
(2019) Hollow Chambers Project, The Crypt gallery, Euston Rd, London
(2018) SFSA Open, No Format Gallery, Deptford, London
(2018) Seven Artists in Sevenoaks, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent
(2018) Dissecting the Archive, UAL Wimbledon Gallery, Wimbledon, London
(2018) Black Barn, Black Barn, Iken, Suffolk
(2018) Landscapes, Brick Lane Gallery, Brick Lane, London
(2018) Colorida Choice, Colorida Art Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2018) Signature Art Prize, Somerset House. Shortlisted
(2018) SFSA Painting Open, Curators Choice
(2018) Ipswich Art Club Selective
(2020) Selected for Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020
(2021) Society of Graphic Fine Art
(2022) Society of Graphic Fine Art
(2021) Federation of British Artists
(2023) Shortlist for Evening Standard Art Prize