Canadian artist Alvin Richard, who lives in the Atlantic provence of New Brunswick, works in acrylic on board when painting his crisp, light-filled still life compositions.
Richard balances his precise draftsmanship with a sensitivity to the softness of edges and a nuanced feeling for the play of light, particularly through glass. This is especially evident in his portrayals of canning jars, with their ridged grooves and raised logos, as well as more decorative glass, both crystal and art glass vessels.
He will often juxtapose his glass containers against the covers of books, particularly art books, with the sheen of their coated covers a muted contrast to the more highly reflective passages on the glass surfaces. He will also often fill his glass containers with objects, both amusing and challenging in their own surface characteristics.
I get the impression he is always looking to challenge himself with interesting combinations and subjects that can be difficult to render, even taking on the portrayal of stamps, labels and book pages.
Richard uses his portfolio on the Federation of Canadian Artists website as his primary website, with selections of both available and sold paintings. He also maintains an active blog, which reaches back to 2007, and another shorter blog just to showcase his available paintings.
You can also find his work on the sites of the Elliot Fouts Gallery and the Fog Forest Gallery.
There is an interview with Alvin Richard on Carrie Waller’s blog, and several articles on Art & Critique.
