Richard Besley: Recent Paintings

Richard Besley has made abstract paintings and drawings for the last 30 years. Initially he constructed compositions from patterns or shapes he found in nature. Over time, he developed processes for layering and removing paint and pigment, which allowed the images to develop in a more unplanned way. He is absorbed with evoking a layered world of light, movement and space.

His great-uncle was an artist called Carlyle Jackson who did impressionist watercolours in the 1920s and 30s. Besley grew up with this work around him and has only quite recently become aware of the very vibrant art scene in Melbourne at this time, which included Clarice Beckett and the tonalist group, but also a group of more traditional landscape painters.