Richard JS Young
Artist and Photographer

 

 

Biography

I was born in the leafy suburbs of Woking in Surrey, England in 1954. I

went to South Australia in 1955 and lived around Adelaide. I started school at Elizabeth Grove and then moved in 1965 to Woomera, in the arid, dry desert of the red north until I was 14 years old when I returned to England. I have a scientific background and obtained a PhD in Chemical Physics at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

 

I have been painting professionally since leaving University. I have chosen to join my interests in art and science. I must admit that I was inspired as a youngster by Leonardo Di Vinci who as a renaissance man joined art and the sciences and pioneered many of the techniques of art and technology.

 

I enjoy colour and making marks. My drawings and watercolour paintings are explorations of how the paint or pencil interact with the paper. Indeed, I started using interesting papers since I was at University and the majority of my work on paper is on either Arches hot pressed or Fabriano Artistico hot pressed. For me, my more interesting images are those that are cerebral and require some interpretation on the part of the viewer. Certainly, my exhibition pieces are like that. I guess that I am primarily a figurative artist, I enjoy drawing and painting the figure.

 

My influences are diverse – music, the figure, dance, the sea, the desert. The early artistic influences are JMW Turner, John Constable and Richard Parkes-Bonington who form the classic roots to my paintings. The handling of the images are influenced by the New York Expressionists such as Rothko, De Kooning, Pollock and Rauschenberg. The handling of the figurative works are influenced by Larry Rivers, Jim Dine, Kitaj and Euan Uglow with Sutherland and Hockney influencing colour choice and narrative.

 

Australian artists such as Sydney Nolan and Tom Phillips, quite different but nonetheless, a remaining interest of my times in Australia, a country I regard as my home. More recently, I have become more interested in the work of Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo and Di Vinci of course plus a special fascination for Vermeer.

 

I enjoy the photographic work of Robert Frank and Helmut Newton.

 

Previous exhibitions

 

1963            Winner NEWS drawing contest

1977            Winner University of Kent Art Competition

1978            Winner University of Kent Art Competition

1978            One man exhibition, University of Kent

1978            3 commissions from the University of Kent

1983            Reading Gallery, Reading, England

1983            Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Piccadilly, London

1988-92        Private commission work (Switzerland)

1993            Kingsley Galleries, Bath

1994            Kings Arms Didmarton, England

1994-00        Eight Bells Gallery, Tetbury, England

1995            Royal West of England Academy – Autumn Exh, Bristol

1996            Royal West of England Academy – Autumn Exh, Bristol

1996            Eight Bell’s Gallery, One man show

1997            Royal West of England Academy – Autumn Exh

2003            Anthony Hepworth Gallery, Bath

2004            Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath
2004            Bath Society of Artists, Victoria Gallery, Bath
2006            Bath Society of Artists, Victoria Gallery, Bath
2006            Centrespace Gallery, Bristol

 

Commissioned work in private collections in UK, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, USA, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines and Australia.