Richard Whincop

A self-taught artist, Richard was born in 1964 at Fordingbridge in Hampshire, and graduated in Art History at York University in 1986. In 1988 he moved to Glasgow, where he executed a series of major commissions in the city and became established as a figurative artist with a series of successful solo shows. He moved to Lavant in West Sussex in 2010, and exhibits at galleries and art fairs throughout the UK and Ireland.

Richard's 2010 show Museum Pieces in Glasgow’s renowned Kelvingrove Museum was the culmination of a major series of works in the form of a dialogue between our contemporary world and the past, combining elements from works of art of bygone eras with present-day figures, man-made objects, animals and even landscapes. There can be links or contrasts (sometimes humorous) between these different elements; sometimes different eras can seem to merge in a dreamlike synthesis that transcends time and place. The paintings are like mysterious riddles, with no obvious or final answer, the interpretation left to the viewer’s imagination- and always inviting a new solution.

In 2011 Richard's Edinburgh solo show, ironically titled “Useless Fictions”, focused on great scientists of the past such as Newton, Galileo and Darwin, and combined religious imagery and elements from the natural world. In the same year Richard also completed a major commission for St. Bride's Church in Bothwell, Scotland – six large canvases which set Jesus’ Baptism in the context of local history, and incorporating miners and mill workers as well as Bothwell Castle.

Richard is currently preparing for a major commission of figurative work for the town of Cosenza in Southern Italy.

Solo and two-person shows:

Jul 2011 Useless Fictions, solo show at Alpha Art, Edinburgh
Jun 2010 Museum Pieces: solo show at Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow
May 2009 See in See out: Joint show with David Farren, Oisín Gallery, Dublin
Nov 2008 In the Picture, solo show at Artdecaf (Braewell Galleries), Glasgow
Nov 2007 Art and Not-art, solo show, Art Exposure Gallery, Glasgow
Apr 2006 Debut solo show, Oisín Gallery, Dublin

Selected Group Shows, Art Fairs and other exhibitions:

Oct 2013 Battersea Art Fair, London (Alpha Art)
May 2013 Summer show, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, Petworth
Apr 2013 Bristol Art Fair (Alpha Art)
Nov 2012 Effervescence, West Dean College, West Sussex
May 2012 Chichester Art Trail
Oct 2011 Affordable Art Fair London (Art Exposure Gallery)
May 2011 Open Art Competition, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Nov 2010 Edinburgh Art Fair (Art Exposure Gallery)
Mar 2010 Glasgow Art Fair (Art Exposure Gallery)
Mar 2009 Affordable Art Fair London (Tracey McNee Fine Art)
Nov 2008 Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam (Tracey McNee Fine Art)
Jun 2006 Aspect Art prize exhibition, Paisley Art Institute

I do not like things to be too easy, and the inherent difficulty of representational oil painting presents a challenge. It is a way of testing yourself, putting your skill and imagination on the line. In every painting you run the risk of failure. As it develops, it becomes a visual problem which does not always have an obvious solution. So I alternate periods of intense activity with time spent simply looking, waiting for the way forward to become clear- for the picture to tell me what to do next. In a purely visual sense, a canvas becomes the arena for a dramatic interplay of contrasting tones and colours, and yet where light must serves to bind together the different emotional and intellectual strands into a unified whole.

I cease working on a painting when I feel that I have brought the opposing or contradictory forces within it into some kind of dynamic balance- albeit sometimes tense or precarious. What I seek is an arresting, unified image: yet one in which the meaning is ambiguous and open-ended. My aim is to engage the viewer’s imagination with work that provokes thoughts and feelings, and yet which also chimes with their own experiences; and with a definitive interpretation elusive, my hope is that they will be able to discover new possibilities each time they return to look at it.

My house in West Sussex dates from the 1780's and I have a north-facing attic studio there, which looks out on the hills of the South Downs.

I have always been fascinated by the relationship between ancient and modern, and my figurative work began in earnest with a series of paintings which juxtaposed traditional artworks and contemporary human figures in the context of art museums. I found that these paintings or sculptures from the past seemed to suggest the thoughts, feelings or memories of the museum visitors, as though giving form to their daydreams. So I began to use these apparently external representations to suggest in a symbolic way the imaginative life of the individuals who behold them.

Feeling the need to go deeper into this inner, imaginative world, I began to set artworks from the past in less familiar contexts such as seas, landscapes or outer space, where they seemed to become like elements in some greater dream. And gradually animals and man-made objects found their way in, creating beguiling, humorous or ironic contrasts. These more complex, symbolic narratives began to be less personal, and to reflect the broader themes of the contemporary imagination- as though today’s culture were dreaming of its own past, its proudly scientific modernity grappling with an ancient legacy of war, religious faith, and blind instinct- and the modern eye with its artistic heritage.

These works have often included a painted frame- and sometimes extra real frames- within the picture itself. Traditionally a picture frame marks a symbolic boundary that separates the realms of art and everyday reality; yet within a painting it can become a gateway that allows the imagination to move freely between different worlds, creating connections between individuals and cultures separate in time and space, and allowing old and new world views to cross swords.

The experience of being an artist is like a journey: each work gives rise to ideas about where to go next; but it is not like progressing in a straight line, with a clear end in sight. I move forwards without ever being able to see more than one step ahead, sometimes sidestepping off on a detour, at others retracing my steps, getting to know old ground more surely and intimately by going over it once more. But from time to time I advance with leaps and bounds into different creative territory; I take a new, unexplored pathway which marks a major departure, and takes me out of my comfort zone. This combination of risk-taking and diligence allows me to develop creatively while also exploring things in depth. The result is a body of work which comprises clear “families” of works, creative variations on specific themes- and yet which are still all recognisably related.

My painting "Viewpoint" won the Art de Caf Gallery award at the Paisley Art Institute Annual Exhibition May 2008.

Timeless, by Anne Ellis

Richard Whincop uses simple classical images that have been set in stone by some ancient hand to intensify and deepen the mysteries of everyday life. Effects of solidity and permanence are opposed to human frailty, living uncertainties set against the still silence of an idealised world of timeless truths. Marble figures are juxtaposed, neither synthesised nor integrated, with modern human subjects; a process of dissociation which is strangely moving and effective in giving form to feelings that are normally ineffable. Somehow the separate elements coalesce to form an act of mediation between viewer and surroundings, between one artistic ambition and another.

The painter, a native of Fordingbridge in Hampshire, is that strange combination of artist and art historian, so it seems only right that he should plunder the past in order to pay homage to the present. His work is very accessible and popular; recently he had a sell-out exhibition in Dublin’s Oisín Gallery, and, sponsored by the excellent Art Exposure Gallery, was a runaway hit in Glasgow ever-growing Art Fair. Many of his paintings are set in museums and art galleries, places that welcome the lonely and the dispossessed. It’s not that he copies any of the backdrops; rather he removes the pieces from their original context and uses them to draw a response, through posture or gesture, from the often solitary viewer he places in front of them. Thus with the simplest of props the most complex emotions are laid bare. It doesn’t always start that way. “I plan my pictures quite carefully; however once a painting is underway, there is often a sense that it takes on a life of its own, prompting me to move beyond my original conception into new and unexpected territory.”

And so it might have been with ‘Je est un autre’; the title, a line from that most hallucinatory of the Symbolist poets, Rimbaud. Grammatical disjunctions already prepare for strange encounters. A young woman gazes at a headless, armless Goddess with a mutilated breast. Could thoughts of breast cancer have been in the mind of the painter, the woman’s gaze and her youth introduce the suggestion? But Whincop hadn’t actually intended to be so specific, “it was meant to be a study of loss, a contemplation of the ravages of time.” And that is his strength. Compositions are delightfully ambiguous and always thought-provoking. So much going on, these little oils will never grow cold on the wall. There is also technical satisfaction in the many understated continuities. The flow of the drapery matched by the rhythm of the girl’s golden hair: the opposition of greens and reds in an otherwise subdued and limited colour palette. The whole composition is simple and restrained, yet it deepens our sense of emotional attachment.

‘Back to Nature’ a slightly larger and more rectangular composition might serve as an ideological companion piece. Set in the Burrell Gallery, an old lady sits in front of a near perfect marble specimen of the female nude. Her posture, her walking stick, and her wrinkled clothes demonstrate exhaustion. She gazes out the large window seeking refreshment from the cool green of the nearby forest. Confronted by the icy perfection of the statue perhaps she has to look away to the woods where her own days of youthful beauty don’t seem so very far off. Directly from the free-play of the artist’s fancy these juxtapositions bring small but eternal truths closer to the perceptive viewer.

‘Symposium’ is one of those compositions that responds directly to Winckelmann’s exhortation to painters to “dip their brushes in intellect”. It was, of course, the title of one of Plato’s best known dialogues: symposia, after-dinner entertainments for the intellects of Ancient Greece. All of this chimes with Whincop’s philosophical approach. Two modern detached figures sit, back-to-back in front of a panel, the ‘Banquet of the Gods’, from the Parthenon Frieze. They echo in pose and gravity the central figures from the bas relief. There is no direct communication. Are they a couple at odds or two strangers offering mutual support? The elements combine to present a case where each party is working on their own side of the argument. And there is enough of the ancient frieze to show that the Gods in the background are doing the same. Colour is so subdued as to be almost non-existent. Whincop is milking the ancient grisaille technique to add to the intensity of the mental activity that is the real subject of the piece; the Platonic essence.

The classical period is not the only backdrop for modern subjects. ‘First Impressions’ depicts part of Monet’s lesser known ‘Déjeuner sur l’herbe’, a composition already made iconic by Manet’s bold reinterpretation of Giorgione’s ‘Concert Champêtre’. Such complex layering only increases the artistic and intellectual potential. The foreground figure could be from the present or a contemporary of the background figures. Her perplexed attitude suggests that somehow she is involved with the picnickers. Pleasing puzzles and subtle ambiguities abound. As the artist says, “A picture can thus express something within myself that I did not intend when I began it. For me, it is this process of discovering the elusive that makes painting challenging and exciting.”

As we have seen Whincop’s titles form an important part of the process. ‘Journey’ does not rely on any quotations from the past. It depicts, very colourfully, a little family either setting out on a journey of discovery or by the positioning of the downcast look of the parents, returning from one. Only the little child has his head high, looking into an unsure but beguiling future; a figure of optimism and uncorrupted simplicity completely at odds with the world-weary postures of his parents. There is an elementary clarity in the simple perspective of this composition, with its unequivocal contours and bold flat areas of paint.

As to future directions the artist “…would like to explore further the spiritual connections between people and religious artworks of different sorts, embracing art traditionally regarded as ‘primitive’as well as that from the mainstream of Western art. I would also like to explore the significance of natural forms in works where rocks, trees or animals become symbolic of an individual’s inner imaginative world.” It sounds as if he is going to continue to produce pleasing images that are –
“Invisible as music –
But positive as sound”
Emily Dickinson
© Anne Ellis