Richard Sorrell PPRWS Hon. RE

Richard Sorrell was born in 1948 in Essex. Son of Alan and Elizabeth Sorrell (both Members of the RWS), Richard studied at Walthamstow Art School (1965-6), Kingston College of Art (1966-9) and the Royal Academy Schools (1969-72). Richard specialises in figurative painting and some objective landscape painting and aerial views.

"I paint my pictures in my studio in West Cornwall. The pictures are inventions, or reinventions of reality, based on a lifetime of looking, and built up from sketches, ideas, and growing out of the process of painting itself. By 'the process of painting' I mean the manipulation of shapes and colours, their alteration to fit in with each other, and the change in the balance, rhythm and meaning of the picture that this entails.

Perhaps because they are inventions, the pictures show a kind of reality that is unfamiliar to many people. They are not, for instance, photographic images. They are paintings of things rather than the appearance of things. Sometimes they may appear a little awkward and strange, but it is their awkwardness that gives them the power to communicate, to say things rather than simply to illustrate them.