Recent work
Fort Langley based artist Richard Cole was born in Edmonton and graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts. His work, collected in corporate and private collections worldwide, celebrates the textures of the ephemeral and the unexpected beauty of land and water. It captures the vast spaces of Alberta’s prairielands, the dark tangle of wildness that is BC’s Fraser River delta, and the oceanscapes of BC's West Coast.
In counterpoint to his sweeping vision, Richard's work also honours small moments: bright poppies against dull grasses, the textures of bark, the promise of clouds, and the transient legacies of human settlement. Recently, Richard has returned to figurative work in oversized portraits of humans and wildlife and has illustrated two successful children’s books
MAJOR HONOURS AND AWARDS
-Finalist for the Kingston Prize 2023 (Canada Portrait Award)
-Shortlisted for British Portrait Award
-BC Bestseller children's book (The Boy Who Paints)
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Portraits
Portrait painting has been a passion of Richard Cole for many years.'I find it challenging, difficult, and frustrating but I love it. Nothing in painting can keep my interest like the relationship of colour in a portrait.'
Luminous
Disruptions
Disruptions are a response to living in changing environments – both the personal one he carries inside him and the one outside his door, each a rich visual place from which he makes his art. His Disruptions series puts aside romantic views of place and inscribes a new reality on landscape, where fear and questioning live side by side with beauty and wonder.