Richard Talbot

Concepts I currently make large-scale drawings, which can sometimes take many months to evolve and to bring to a conclusion. They incorporate forms and ideas associated with architecture, maps, geometry, space, landscape, water, vessels and containers, and are built using a process (geometric perspective) that involves producing a complex and almost transparent matrix. This web of lines acts as scaffolding in which the images and structures are created and then held. The images can therefore exist without the constraints of gravity, scale and materials. My approach could be compared to the building of a medieval/Gothic cathedral, where a rigid two-dimensional ground plan was put in place, and the ensuing structure then developed organically, its final form being the result of varying amounts of intention, failure, pragmatism, accident and ambition.Influences Anything and everything. Career path I studied for a BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, an MA Sculpture at Chelsea, and in 1980 was awarded the Rome Scholarship in Sculpture. During this time I travelled widely throughout Italy, but also spent time in Egypt. Many of the ideas and interests that I continue to pursue, both in the studio and in my theoretical/historical research, stem from this time. I see my practise as primarily studio-based, but I have also worked alongside designers and architects. I have also collaborated on a major commission that is sited in Westminster Abbey. I have been the winner of major awards, such as the Cleveland Drawing Biennale and, more recently, the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation and AHRC. I continue to teach on Fine Art courses within art schools, and I have also had substantial research papers relating to the history and theory of perspective published, both on-line and in print.