An artist whose previous career has seen him tour the world with a rock band and appear on Top of the Pops is preparing to take centre stage again.
Examples of Richard Kaye’s paintings – on unusually shaped canvasses – as well as his printmaking work and drawings can be seen in a new show in Lyme Regis this month.
Richard has been living in Ottery St Mary with his family for more 17 years, moving from London to bring his two children up in Devon, close to his parents, who lived in Lyme Regis. He has a deep love of the area, having lived in both Lyme Regis and Bridport as a young man.
Prior to moving to Devon, Richard had an interesting career in music, which involved a year touring the world with the rock band Ash as their ‘scratch DJ’. During this time he played on the main stage at Glastonbury and appeared on Top of the Pops.
While living in Ottery he appeared on the TV show Come Dine With Me.
Art has always been an important part of Richard’s life and this exhibition is focusing on his last five years, which have been some of his most productive.
The show includes Richard’s recent paintings, which are on unusually shaped canvasses. This came about as an evolution of some work he did during the last three years focusing on architectural shapes and forms expressed in bold colours in order to capture the attention of the viewer. Wanting to make the work even more punchy he decided to also stretch the canvasses into shapes that reflect the architectural and geometric forms that he was now becoming fascinated by. This was by no means a simple process, and in itself threw up many challenges with stretching the canvas and then making the frames.
Some of the more traditional paintings in the exhibition are landscapes influenced by the coastline around Lyme Regis.
The print work includes a screen printed series of work focusing on brutalist architecture in London, but bought to life using neon colours to force the viewer’s attention.
‘Richard Kaye, Recent Work 2018-2022’ is at the Malthouse Gallery, The Town Mill, Lyme Regis, from Saturday, August 13 to Thursday, August 25, open 10am-5pm daily.
