Study event review: OCA North

Artist Miranda Richmond at OCA North meeting, Halifax. Sunday January 12, 2020

OCA North invited Middlesbrough-based artist Miranda Richmond to discuss her work in January. Richmond’s current exhibition Presences at Dean Clough Mills in Halifax focuses on portraits created using intense looking and expressive mark making.

Richmond, who also creates landscapes discussed her influences including her late husband artist Miles Richmond who was taught by David Bomberg. She spoke about how she tried to connect directly with the experience of the work she was making and how the imagination is important in translating that experience into a painting.

Richmond has spent time in Iona as well as in the countryside of North Yorkshire and she shared her amazing sketchbooks from this time spent in nature. She has also spent time working with groups including refugees and people with mental health issues to make art. It was an inspiring session which focussed on Richmond’s process, about work as an encounter and the idea of connecting with something outside oneself.

She answered student questions about her working methods and her ideas about the concept of ‘finding your voice’ as an artist (you can only find it by stripping away your ideas and preconceptions and connecting directly with your subject). Students also asked about the time a piece of work would take to make including her sketches and discussed the spiritual aspects of making art which Richmond described. Students also used the day to discuss their own work in progress. It was a thought-provoking session and very interesting to have a discussion with a working artist. I’d recommend any OCA student to take the opportunity and join in with regional group activities if you can.

Visit the Regional Group space on OCA discuss here and find upcoming study events in the diary here.

Images: OCA student Andrew Fitzgibbon.