Richard Heys // I live and work in East Sussex, England, on the edge of the ancient Ashdown Forest - Winnie the Pooh country. I was born and raised on a farm in West Yorkshire. Close to a reservoir and the moors of the Peak District.
I work predominantly as an abstract artist, although landscapes I have visited, and grown up with inform my imaginations and resurface again and again in my work.
I also love with a passion the ethereal nature of colour and the physical qualities of paint and ground. I work consciously with the polarities of imagination and image, creating pictures of place and no-place, inner space reflections of outer place and atmosphere.
I work to remould inner spaces, to invite attention to and engagement with surface and depth, outer picture and inner soul-space, I aim to create, to borrow a phrase, "the painting as a doorway".
This summer I have engaged with many new canvases, one or two are ready be seen. I have also worked on some 'mood' pieces, these two gouaches remind me of the moors of my childhood in the Peak District, and the Seascapes are developing nicely.
The work is progressing well, I've managed to get into the painting and I'm really enjoying my little studio, not so little as it enables me to have 14 or so active paintings. I have several pieces in the final stages so that feels exciting. I'm trying not to think about sales and the rest of it, such thoughts are never helpful and always stop me in my tracks and push me into 'slick' mode.
I'm thinking about framing and finishing which is challenging me, what is the best finish for these canvases, are they robust enough to go into the world? Are they rigorous enough? It's always difficult to face this rain of thoughts, and critical voices, even when other's are encouraging, are they honest? Are they enthusiastic enough? The work is the only thing of importance, and if I still love it and still discover new things day after day then it's alive. And yes, It's still alive.As I'm without a large enough studio at present the Night series has been developing on a diminutive scale, there are now several directions. Things move away and reappear in new patterns, and some things stay the same. I like the ladder and thoughts of the notion of folds in time, like the folds we find in ancient bedrock. The granite of the Canadian shield, and the ancient stones and granites of Edinburgh offer an interesting lever into the paintings. The valley and the rise, the catacomb and the hilltop all sound forth, ancient and modern we still feel the pull and the release, bird call and night fall, a universal memory.
Along with the paintings I attached some images of ancient stone.
I have made the most of the mild weather over half term, and spent many hours painting, the attached images show some of the work from the last week.
The studio after the clocks have gone back, the day is much shorter, and as I can only get there in the afternoons most days, I'm feeling very pinched for time. I have a dozen or so canvases started, some well advanced and some still just at the beginning. This is half term week, so I'm going to make the most of the long days. I can still survive here without heating but not sure for how long. Perhaps I'll start some more red canvases. I'm excited to begin the Diptych I've been planning, and two smaller cotton canvases.
I noticed this play of light and shadow when I was roused from sleep by a hungry cat, I shot some video which captured the added delicacy of heat rising, marvellous.
