Richard Howell

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Surface edge shadow 2022

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​Richard's work represents a journey taken over 30 years.  He started as a painter working with bold flat colours and hard edges. Then he began adding texture, eventually becoming more daring - scratching, rubbing and sanding. The deconstruction of the surface became an integral part of the work and his fascination with materials was born. 

At this time Richard started making card structures, sometimes landscape based, sometimes like unearthed machinery that has been buried for years. These pieces were splatter painted using a tooth brush, building up many layers and colours, achieving a stone like quality. For a long time he also made wooden nail artworks, inspired by Stanley Spencer's monumental painting 'The Crucifixion' - and the nail form still crops up in his work today.

The reliefs were pivotal as they encouraged experimentation.  Richard first began using copper wire thanks to a car boot sale find, initially using it to bond objects together but now he also uses it as a sewn line, pricking and back-stitching. 

His body of work combines many materials: some found, some made, some altered. Textures fascinate him.  He often works with paint fragments - a by-product of his day job as a decorator - which he shapes or threads with wire. For nearly two years he worked with calcified water which had formed on the inside of an immersion heater. The material was brittle but so beautiful, with an array of subtle colours. 

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The found materials used in Richard's sculptures come from many different sources, including scrap yards and skips, which he loves to explore. His current work has ancestors, rather like a family tree, but each sculpture has the confidence to stand tall and proud on its own. For him, the creative journey is one of progression. There are no rules, no barriers, just the excitement of not knowing where the road will lead.

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