Richard Thurston | Profile
Bachelor of Design (Hons) Massey University, New Zealand
Medium | Fine Art Photography.
Richard Thurston’s works explores the mysteries of abstracted Seascapes, through the medium of photography.
His photography investigates the allure of the unknown, an intrigue into the unfamiliar. He is transcending moments of mystery into the pathways of forgotten dreams.
He is embracing an inherent human emotion of apprehension that resides in our states of the sub consciousness. The apprehension into the unknown can be overcome once the doors of perception are cleansed and the promise of knowledge will then be received.
Richard’s work are generally large scale so the viewer can be giving the opportunity to immerse themselves into these moments of mystery where their own interpretations and memories can be free to flourish.
Key Influences
My first art teacher was the late Wellington artist Rob Taylor, who made an enormous impression on me. Taylor was an abstract expressionist, and produced large works, which are in a number of New Zealand collections. I have to credit him for encouraging me in becoming an artist.
A trip to South America and Europe in 2009 and not so recently now, New York, enabled me to visit and absorb a number of influential collections. However, one experience that proved exceptionally worthwhile was Mark Rothko’s retrospective exhibition of the Four Seasons restaurant murals held at London’s Tate Modern.
The very large monolithic canvases appealed to me firstly as a viewer, then as a participant of something unexpectedly greater than the artwork itself.
Rothko’s paintings are what significant artwork is supposed to do, to shift the participant willing or unwilling to an emotional transcendence. As I stood in front of Rothko’s extremely large canvases, the colours began to pulse and blur back and forth, creating an illusion of monolithic hues breathing in front of me, giving life to the painting. The show was a great lesson in how an artist can connect the viewer through colour or the absence of it.
I aim to produce work that also applies the American artist, Shea Hembrey’s, artistic criteria for a successful art work through the three ‘H’ rule.
Head, Heart and Hands.
Head: Intelligent and conceptual work,
Heart: Love and passion for the work,
Hands: The craft and skill in which the work is created.
Other Influential artists are Robert Motherwell, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, Rob Taylor, Max Gimblet, Jean Michel Basquiat and William Turner, to name a few.
For any further information please feel free to contact me.
Cheers
Richard Thurston