Lyndon Richards ‘Life as an artist’

“My lifetime in Art started in the late 1960’s when leaving school and confronted with what to do with my life.

Highly influenced by the Rock bands of the time, I noticed that a large number of them had been to Art School, where they had developed into the people that they had become.

My intention wasn’t to become a Rock star, my interest being in Art, even though I found myself on stage with Bob Dylan for the second half of his gig in Cardiff in 1965!

I started with a Foundation year at Newport , before moving on to Cheltenham, where the reputation for Painting and Sculpture was very good. Following three years there, I did a Postgraduate teacher training course at Cardiff. “

‘Ploughed field, Penberry’

“Then came twenty eight years teaching Art, as well as having been a Senior Moderator for A Level Art with the exam board AQA for fifteen. I took early retirement at fifty-six to concentrate on my own work.

Many of my paintings are of harbours. This started with my having been selected as the artist to represent Wales in the early 1980’s at the Interceltic Festival of Music and Art in L’Orient, Brittany. My love affair with Brittany had begun, and following years of visiting, I became influenced by painters living around places such as Pont Aven and Le Pouldu, such as Desire Lucas, Emile Bernard, Gauguin and Le Gout Gerard, as well as English painters such as Sydney Thompson, Joseph Milner-Kite and Joseph Bulfield. Amongst their subjects were harbours, where we see a certain timelessness, a spirituality, a sense of otherness in the simple mark-making which I aim to achieve myself. “

‘Fishing boats, Porthgain’

‘Gone fishing, Porthgain’

“In 2001 I bought my own gallery in the centre of the tourist town of Josselin, where I sold these paintings every Summer for the next ten years, presenting them in vintage French frames that are in keeping with the style of work.

I started with drawings and photos of the sky, water, boats and houses in places such as Pont Aven and Roche Bernard. Having grown up in the much simpler times of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and following this time spent in rural Brittany, I find that the St. David’s Peninsula reminds me of that transparent reality and brilliant light, with its wealth of rolling landscapes, small villages and harbours.

Recently I have found that by initially painting the main areas with large brushes and mixes of acrylic paint and emulsion, it has helped in loosening up. Further visits to the paintings are then made to over paint in very good quality oils, Old Holland or Vasari, where possible.

My work is constantly evolving, hopefully becoming simpler and therfore more dramatic as a result. “