Vaila Fine Art logo

Richard Rowland: Vaila Fine Art exhibition 2018

Recent Work

Richard Rowland has worked from his studio on the Westside since 1998. His latest show at Vaila Fine Art contains prints from his travels in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and other recent work.

Richard trained in London at the Sir John Cass Art School and at the Camden Institute, choosing to concentrate on etching since 1986. He has exhibited regularly, mainly at the Millinery Works in London and at Vaila Fine Art.

“I enjoy the combination of creation and craftsmanship involved in the time consuming process of etching.”

He uses the same techniques and materials as used by Rembrandt in the 17th century supplemented by aquatint later developed by etchers to create tone. He works mainly in monotone, although some of his recent prints are in colour.

“I use traditional techniques, zinc plates and nitric acid to produce a range of contrasting tones, for which etching is celebrated. Colour is not naturally suited to traditional etching and requires a different approach, using rollers. Colour prints are much harder to edition, so I am showing some of them as monoprints.”

The landscapes in Iceland and Faroes are naturally suited to his moody black and white etchings, with their rocks like layers on a wedding cake, near vertical cliffs and desolate mountainscapes.

“Mighty Gullifoss” one of Iceland’s dramatic waterfalls demonstrates the variations in tone and different textures which can be obtained in the etching process.

The show includes a number of etchings and lino prints based on Cezanne’s pictures of Montagne Sainte Victoire in Provence. Cezanne did some 70 pictures of this over 30 years; his aim was “to see nature as patches of colour.” And he distilled his landscapes into cones, rectangles and circles. Richard’s monotone etchings employ patches of tone rather than colour to intensify the landscape. And his colour and black and white lino prints deconstruct the essential elements of Cezanne’s cubist landscapes, following Cezanne’s tenet that where colour is richest, form is at it’s fullest.

Richard has also included in the show some recent Shetland prints including his series of four Shetland birds, the Small Boat Harbour and Jimmy Perez’ Lodberrie in Lerwick and views near the Isle of Vaila.

The Private View is on Wednesday 18 July at 6 pm; all welcome.