In Leafy Groves and Glades, New End Gallery, Hampstead, April 2010

There are those turning points in life that have just been waiting to happen; it just needs a trigger to flick the switch. A holiday in a Tuscan villa surrounded by olive groves was the one that changed Richard Corbett’s life and work. Every morning the sun would wake him glistening through the trees, creating long shadows across the grass. The scene was filled with deep greys, olive greens, reds and yellows. Since then, he has strived to share the joy that scene inspired in his paintings.

Richard, now based in Monmouth, South Wales, has immersed himself in Nature since he first studied art at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School and  then at Watford and Norwich Schools of Art. “Somehow trees have always been there, whether it be through creating woodcuts from old drift wood, or taking photographs of their movement in the water, but they have always led to abstract ideas, and generally dark and moody ones at that.” However, for the last two years, and especially since his trip to Tuscany, he has returned to his paint brushes and canvas and started to work directly from the landscape.

Alongside olive groves and the glades that can be seen from his studio in Wales, Richard will also be hanging a number of paintings of sunlit corners of Hampstead Heath created during his regular visits over the past year.

 Richard is very excited to be showing in London again with a set of work that he feels is very poignant at the moment when the world is changing so fast and lives are so busy: “I hope that by celebrating the glorious effects of the sun as it travels through the branches into intimate spaces my works inspire memories of special moments, spent calm and secure in the realms of trees.”