malcolmrichardsart

Thanks for visiting this website.

I have never lost the wonder over how a simple line may morph into a cogent image; it is to me as magic today as it was when I was a child. Art can be and often is a struggle and discards are not infrequent, but I find an inner peace in the craft of drawing that has been tested at times but would be heartbreaking to lose.

The medium of the work matters. I’ve used a variety of media and the changes appear in new series or phases in my career. Many works are done in traditional oil on canvas or charcoal/conte on paper, being the media I chose to concentrate on at art school for a strong foundation to what I thought would be a future career. I have continued to use them since and with time, I have done more drawn work adding texta, pencils  and at times anything close to hand. In recent years, most of my work has been illustrating books, aimed to entertain children and their parents and carers, but also to provide a trigger for conversations between them all when the curious child asks ‘why?’

As a child, parent and grandparent I have loved reading illustrated books and have always looked closely at the pictures as they gave body and subtly to the printed narrative. My recent move to coloured pencils while illustrating stories  is to give kids a medium that they recognise and use themselves. As a child I drew voraciously but no one taught me the role of the eraser and the satisfaction of the redraw. Then, I thought artists just did it all on the first draft! This first video is for any child looking at this website  with the hope that they too will grow to love the craft in the art they produce.

There are themes in my work that are important to me though I try not to be too didactic.  Personally, I find the polarisation in discourse in society at present to be distressing and ultimately self-defeating.  However, I hope viewers of the work here will consider the themes in the work both in the individual art works and series and the illustrated books.

Please enjoy your journey through art and I hope this work resonates with you.

About Malcolm

Find out more about Malcolm, his work, and his exhibitions

The Collections

See the collections of Malcolm's work, including a peek at whats coming