Finding Stillness in Colour
- Hannah Tapping
- Jul 3
- 2 min read
Words By Hannah Tapping
Beth Richardson’s work finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, encouraging inquiry into simple, everyday objects.
Having spent over a decade painting in Portugal, artist Beth Richardson has returned to Cornwall, bringing with her a palette shaped by sunlight, shadows and the gentle musings of everyday life. Her work, known for its saturated stillness and quiet contemplation, continues to blur the line between the domestic and the transcendent.
“My paintings are definitely a little bit autobiographical,” she says. “Sometimes things stop me in my tracks. It might be a glowing magnolia caught against a sunlit sky on the Helford, a washing line of sarees in India or simply a chair stacked high with laundry at home that are committed to memory,” Beth’s world is made up of fleeting observations that settle on the canvas like memory.
Working in acrylics on canvas, Beth layers paint before paring it back to a visual essence. “I build them up, layer after layer. I start with putting a lot of things on the canvas… and then it’s a process of editing out until the bare minimum is left.” Her compositions are meditative in both form and intent. “The simplest paintings can have the strongest impact. I’m curious to play with composition, with the intention of holding people’s gaze. There’s definitely a meditative kind of quality to them,” she says of her paintings. “A stillness.”
There’s a spatial generosity too – something Beth describes as a kind of quiet collaboration with the viewer. “I feel that the paintings which have a lot of space in them, those immersive fields of colour, allow the viewer to bring much of their own world to those spaces.”
Richardson regularly explores subtle dualities within her compositions. “There’s often an object and its shadow, creating a relationship between the two,” Beth explains. “And also, an element of blurred edges… you’re not quite sure if it’s in focus or not. I like that sense of exploring perception, of what’s real and what’s imaginary.”
Based near the Helford in a converted barn studio, Beth welcomes commissions and studio visits by appointment. Her work is shown through the Greenstage Gallery in the UK and internationally at Affordable Art Fairs, as well as at Galleria Palma Arte, Italy, where she has a permanent collection.
