"24 Musicians"
NOW SHOWING at Hilton Adelaide.

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Artist statement

"A painter paints pictures on canvas.  But musicians paint their pictures on silence."
~ Leopold Stokowski

Like most people music has been a profound source of inspiration and comfort in my life. Music has also been perhaps the greatest field where my enthusiasm has tried and failed most profoundly to overwhelm my obvious lack of talent. I spent most Sunday mornings of my late teens and early twenties with a talented and long suffering saxophone teacher, Bill Piercy, but alas to no avail. I was just terrible.

Maybe because of this I have always found live music of almost any kind to be the best. I love its vigour, tension and beat, it’s harmonies and it’s outpouring of emotion. I also love it’s spontaneity through improvisation and even the wrong and false notes. I hope that these pictures capture that feel and I have tried to keep corrections to a minimum.

When done, corrections were generally made to faces of people known to me particularly when I found that they expressed an emotion unknown to me in that person - Texta can be an unforgiving medium and I know for instance that Kate is not a demonic axe-murderer.

The works were done when and wherever I could - as such I found myself paradoxically doing figurative drawing in the landscapist’s worlds of the river Murray or the deserts of Coober Pedy. Some of the works may have been a little beaten in the process, please forgive the occasionally less than pristine paper.

I also owe a great debt to all who sat for these works. They allowed me to visit their gigs, rehearsals, homes and churches or came to my house with an enthusiasm and generosity that was a privilege to receive.

Finally one must acknowledge mentors in the Adelaide Central School of Art, particularly Rob Gutteridge whose gentle but pervasive enthusiasm helped the series start in the chilly evenings of 2007 with the first two works.

"I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else."
~Lily Tomlin

Curriculum Vitae

Part time student - Adelaide Central School of Art 2003-2009

Solo Exhibitions

‘People and Food’. Flight Path Gallery, Hindley St. Adelaide. May 2007
‘Just Food’. Jaspers Brasserie. Tanunda Dec 2007- Feb 2009

Contributor to community exhibitions

Adelaide Cathedral Art Exhibition 2007
Gawler Art Acquisition Exhibition 2007- ‘Highly Commended’
Student exhibitions Adelaide Central School of Art 2003-2008
Arts Action exhibitions, Gawler 2006,2005,2004
Meeting of Two Rivers, Gawler 2001
Body Parts, Elizabeth Art Society 2001
Arts Action First Exhibition, Eagle Foundry Gawler 2001
Body and Soul, Albert Lane Gallery, Gawler 1998

Malcolm Richards lives in Gawler 40 km north of Adelaide