Victor Richardson was born in Belfast in 1952. He moved
to County Cork in 1974 where he has lived for most of the
last 30 years except for a few years in England and France.
He has worked as a professional painter since 1980, exhibiting
widely in Ireland, Britain and the U.S.A. Obvious influences
in his paintings were the works of Seurat, Bonnard and Klimt,
but over time he has adapted elements of Impressionism and
Pointillism to develop his own distinctive style which manifests
a fresh and vivid approach to traditional imagery.
For most of his career Richardson has worked in soft pastel.
Pastel is often confused with chalk, but whereas the latter
is merely limestone and dye, pastel is actually dry powdered
pigment moulded into a crayon with binding solution. The
word pastel is actually derived from the "paste"
made by grinding the pigment and binder together. Pastel
is as close as an artist can come to painting with pure
colour and there is no cracking or discolouring with age,
as is evident with many oil paintings.
In recent years he has returned to oil painting and now
exhibits both pastels and oils in his current solo shows.
“I have always been drawn to the possibilities of light,
texture, colour and design afforded by trees and water,
often the raw materials of my landscapes, be they in Ireland,
France or America. Over the years, I have developed my own
distinctive approach to landscape, interpreting it in the
impressionist spirit but with a modern style. My world is
not as it truly is, but how it ought to be. Perhaps I try
to speak not so much to the mind, but to the heart, for
surely reflection and beauty have more to do with sensitivity
than with intelligence."
Victor Richardson