'chasing the light...' an exhibition of over 50 paintings by Richard Pikesley RWS NEAC

“chasing the light....”
Paintings by Richard Pikesley –11th July to 3rd August 2010
Since Richard decided to call his exhibition “chasing the light” – which I think says it all – I find that I keep writing “capturing the light” and did again when I started to scribble down some thoughts for this introduction. This set me thinking why do I keep making this slip? So, apart from the obvious difference in dictionary definitions – what is it that leads Richard to ‘chasing’ and me to ‘capturing’? Well, here is what I think....
Richard clearly sees and feels his work, his need to paint, as an ongoing search or quest, consequently the paintings are continuously and subtly changing and developing. Whilst I see each painting for itself, standing alone, each as a success story. So for Richard he is always ‘chasing’ the light whereas in my eyes he succeeds time and time again and has ‘captured’ it.
And ‘light’ is a word that has figured large in all of the introductions to Rich-ard’s one man shows with us, this one being his eighth. One quote that I’ve repeated before and always comes to mind even when only thinking of Rich-ard’s paintings comes from an idea expressed by Brian Sewell (although I ad-mit I’ve forgotten what he was writing about at the time) and I hope that he won’t mind me adopting it – he said ‘when you emerge from a cool and shady cafe and step into dazzling sunlight there is an instant when you are blinded. Suddenly an image appears but only for a moment....’ – it is this moment that Richard allows us to see.
Richard will be here at the Private View on Sunday 11th July and is very much looking forward to seeing you all. There are paintings of the Outer Hebrides, Seville and Andalucía, Verona and nearer to home, Cornwall and Dorset and of course, studio interiors and still lifes. We certainly can’t wait to have the Gallery filled with his paintings, it’s always so exciting – now I’ll have to stop or I’ll be off again trying to express how I feel about the work – I think I shall make it my mission to help everyone take as much joy as I do from Richard’s paintings, they are truly uplifting and celebratory. There is only one answer – you will have to come and see for yourselves!
P.S. Since writing this Richard and I were talking about the title – at one point Richard laughed and said, well, at times it seemed that he would go to Lyme to paint and find the light disappearing and so he would chase off to West Bay.... and so on and so forth!

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