Richard Edwards
Born in Cwmparc, Wales, Richard Edwards is a Calgary-based painter and sculptor. He earned an Intermediate Certificate in Arts and Crafts and a National Diploma of Design in Painting (1965) at the Cardiff College of Art, South Wales, and an Art Teaching Certificate (1966) at the Hornsey College of Art in London. After moving to Canada (1972), he began teaching painting at the Alberta College of Art (1975) and later became the Design Chair, the Head of Fine Art, and the Painting Department’s Programme Coordinator (until 1982).
Edwards composes in a range of media, and often produces vivid, popping reds against largely black and white compositions that may include blurred or obscured faces. His titles range from enigmatic, such as “Refrigerator Act” for an image suggesting a homicide-scene chalk outline in a kitchen, to the melodramatic, as with “Killer – Girl on Pink Chesterfield” as part of his Detective Series.
Describing a set of mixed media drawings featuring a “hybrid dog/wolf/boar head, severed or visually isolated,” Edwards writes, “The unique quality of the German/Czech forest landscape with its densely packed layers and thick undergrowth [recalls] Grimms’ Black Fairy Tales and attendant wild beasts, rituals, and varied folklore. Muzzled in wire cages, large mastiff dogs on leashes [surround] the city of Ostrava, a contained post-Communist metaphor of renewal through containment.”
Edwards’s work has appeared in dozens of exhibitions in Calgary, one in Edmonton, and another in the Czech Republic, and in solo shows such as Ship/Ball on a Black Water Valley and The Cardboard Shipyard. Several collections, including those of the University of Middlesex, Texaco, and the Lennard Corporation, hold his art. Edward currently teaches painting and drawing at the Alberta College of Art + Design.
Edwards composes in a range of media, and often produces vivid, popping reds against largely black and white compositions that may include blurred or obscured faces. His titles range from enigmatic, such as “Refrigerator Act” for an image suggesting a homicide-scene chalk outline in a kitchen, to the melodramatic, as with “Killer – Girl on Pink Chesterfield” as part of his Detective Series.
Describing a set of mixed media drawings featuring a “hybrid dog/wolf/boar head, severed or visually isolated,” Edwards writes, “The unique quality of the German/Czech forest landscape with its densely packed layers and thick undergrowth [recalls] Grimms’ Black Fairy Tales and attendant wild beasts, rituals, and varied folklore. Muzzled in wire cages, large mastiff dogs on leashes [surround] the city of Ostrava, a contained post-Communist metaphor of renewal through containment.”
Edwards’s work has appeared in dozens of exhibitions in Calgary, one in Edmonton, and another in the Czech Republic, and in solo shows such as Ship/Ball on a Black Water Valley and The Cardboard Shipyard. Several collections, including those of the University of Middlesex, Texaco, and the Lennard Corporation, hold his art. Edward currently teaches painting and drawing at the Alberta College of Art + Design.