Richard Blades | Biography

Richard was born in 1978 and raised in East Anglia. His passion for painting began whilst living in Cornwall in his mid-twenties, working under the influence of professional painters based on the Rame Peninsular. Although academically trained, obtaining a BA in Fine Art from the University of Plymouth, Richard regards himself as a self-taught painter.

Having grown up in East Anglia, much of Richard’s work is based on and inspired by the skies and landscapes of the area but having travelled widely, his paintings take on a universal quality. Along with the landscape, he is also a still-life painter, fascinated by the quiet corners of studios and how light falls upon objects and plants.

Richard, who recently moved to Norfolk after a decade in London, says of his work “I am primarily an expressive landscape painter working in the English Romantic tradition. I feel a deep connection to the landscape and the artists who also chose the sky, sea and land as their source of inspiration. Turner, Constable, Seago, Daubigney and Courbet are personal favourites of mine. The gaps of generations and hundreds of years matter little. Regardless of what has changed in this world, the technological advancements and societal shifts, the landscape is always there, as something eternal, the ever-changing muse, always present, yet never the same. ”

Richard’s work is regularly exhibited in Cornwall and London and is held in private collections, both in the UK and abroad.