Born London in 1967, with dual Swiss / British nationality, Richelle Rich lives and works in Los Angeles with her musician husband Harry Waters and two scruffy little boys. She is the curator and creator of The Art House Joshua Tree and monthly digital zine The Art House Files .
Education
1997 MA Fine Art Royal College of Art London.
1995 BA Fine Art Central St Martins school of Art
Publications / Awards / Reviews
Winner of the Yeah Field Trip / Huawei Mate competition, Augustus Martin Prize, Falkiner Fine Paper Award, Shortlisted for FACK arts prize.
Rich's writing has been published in Art Review magazine. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, The Financial Times ‘How to Spend it Magazine’, The Times (London), The Independent, Contemporary Magazine, Time Out (London), Harpers and Queen.
"I am a hoarder. I collect objects, ephemera, and detritus, traces of life, and examine them through the camera to uncover the stories I am searching for. The discarded becomes sacred through the ritual of my obsessive documentation. I am interested in the intersection of trauma and transcendence and the ways in which objects are magically contaminated by our stories, emotions and memories. I aim to create images that give form to the stories we can’t find the words for. I make the unspeakable tangible. Whether it's working in the still life tradition evocative of the Dutch masters or using a macro lens with an infinitesimally shallow depth of field, my works, while autobiographical, are encoded with cultural, political, and historical subtext."
Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.
I was born in London, raised on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, but moved back to London on my own at 16. My family were creative makers but didn't call themselves artists but I always knew it was what I wanted to be and do.
What kind of work are you currently making?
I am a multidisciplinary conceptual artist. I work in performance, video, sculpture, painting and drawing but I keep coming back to my first love, photography. I am making images about stories we cant find the words for.
What is a day like in the studio for you?
I am a mum to two kids and my youngest currently has a lot of anxiety, my husband is a musician so he is often on tour, so my day and my routine has to be flexible.
I'm lucky because my studio is just outside our home so I can pop in and out. But on a good day I take a big flask of tea, plus a flask of coffee, out to the studio and drink them while I look over the previous days work. I like being busy and work quite quickly when an idea grabs me, but I take longer to assess and select works.
Currently I have two shows coming up so there's a lot of admin and shipping and printing to be done. I am also working on a book of photographs so I might edit and re-paginate and write. Right now I want to be making more work but there's a lot of practical stuff to do! Often I might just sit and read and look through my art books contemplating the work I want to make. I love sitting and watching the light move across my studio.
Every day is different.
What are you looking at right now and/or reading?
I am reading Louise Erdrich 'The Sentence'.
Where can we find more of your work?
Website: richellerich.com
Instagram: @richellerich
Upcoming show in LA September 23rd gallery 169
