Richard Kidd
'Talisker Bay'

Oil on canvas
127 x 254 cm

Richard Kidd was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1952. He studied at Newcastle University 1970-74. He was a prizewinner in John Moores 9 1974 and awarded the Abbey Scholarship at the British School in Rome 1975-76. Between 1977 and 1993 he exhibited regularly with the Rowan Gallery London and from 1981 to 1987 he was based in New York. In 2001 he relocated back to the north of England and has shown in 'north' Central Square Newcastle 2001 and at Red Box Design Gallery Newcastle 2002.

"I travel to remote places, just to be there, but also in order to make drawings and small paintings as a way of looking and communicating the sense of immediacy those places offer. Back in the studio these works become 'springboards' into large scale paintings, in which the energy and urgency of 'on the spot' mark making is re-interpreted with different tools and materials. The identity of each place, whilst usually being acknowledged in the title, is not the main issue. I’m happy for people to lose all sense of 'hillside' or 'rock face', and let their focus shift to a more objective appraisal of the paint – the colour; the physicality of the brush marks, the unpremeditated, fortuitous accidents. I want people to explore my paintings, to discover things and be surprised. I'd like to make a painting full of such incidents, in which no single detail was consciously manufactured. That would be like being there."