Dreaming Painting

Graham Bruce Richards lives on the beautiful and rugged Isle of Mull, Scotland.A professional artist since 2004. Graham has had many successful solo and joint exhibitions throughout Scotland, in: Edinburgh, Dumfries, Helensburgh, Inverness, Kirkcudbright and on the Isle of Mull. His work was also featured and credited in the 2013 movie ‘I Give it a Year’, by the British film studio, Working Title. Graham has made an exciting recent change in direction of his subject to figurative work in the landscape. These paintings have been created in his own original style of combining acrylic paint with gold and silver leaf. By using as a setting the backdrop of the Isle of Mull, a Scottish Hebridean Island which has been his home for the past 9 years, they also have a unique sense of place. This rugged landscape with its wide untamed spaces is used to convey a sense of peace and freedom and as an escape from everyday urban life . There is a surreal quality in his paintings where figures are transported, as if dreaming elsewhere to be in this place of serenity. The works inspire thought into our current and past relationships with nature and the world we have created. We live in a world in which nature is dominated by man yet conversely feel a desire to reconnect with it. This idea is developed further, back to childhood relationships with nature which are formed through lessons learned of its savagery. Through play and exploration, we initially learn to fear the cruelty of nature and from this, ways in which to dominate it. The current switch to computer generated entertainment over outdoor play, brings with it the question as to what these childhood lessons have now become and how they will affect our relationship with the natural world.