About
Painting is an act that connects reality and consciousness. It is more than a collective codification of signs. It is a performance that awakens the delirium of vision.
—Richard Wright
Richard Wright is known for large-scale and site-specific—but often temporary—painted and applied metal-leaf installations and leaded window works that invest architectural spaces with new optical and associative complexity. Shifting between illusionism and abstraction, his projects alter the viewer’s perception of space. Incorporating graphic and ornamental elements, his work often alludes to Minimalism and Renaissance art as well as to commercial images. In his stylistically diverse works on paper, Wright employs ink drawing, gilding, printmaking, enamel, and watercolor painting techniques that Camden Art Centre director Martin Clark described as having an “allover quality that seemed to exceed the limits of the paper, a field of indeterminate shapes and matter: drifting, coalescing, accreting and dissipating, like the curl of vapour in an alchemist’s alembic.”
Wright was born in 1960 in London and moved to Scotland with his family when he was young; he now lives and works in Norfolk, England, and Glasgow, Scotland. He graduated with a BA from Edinburgh College of Art in 1982 and an MA from Glasgow School of Art in 1995. Initially producing figurative painting, he became disillusioned with the methodology in the late 1980s and abandoned his art practice altogether for two years to train as a professional sign painter. While studying in Glasgow he destroyed all his work on canvas and began painting directly onto the walls of exhibition spaces, often focusing on corners and other marginal areas to emphasize the interaction of his imagery with its built environment.
#RichardWright
Exhibitions
In Conversation
Richard Wright and Martin Clark
Richard Wright and Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, London, discuss Wright’s latest body of work, recent commissions, and new monograph, which provides a comprehensive overview of his practice between 2010 and 2020.
No Title
In an excerpt from his forthcoming monograph, Richard Wright pens a personal and philosophical text about painting.
Behind the Art
Richard Wright
In an interview with Kay Pallister, the artist explains his relationship to drawing and the importance of time in his site-specific works.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2019
The Summer 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Afrylic by Ellen Gallagher on its cover.
Richard Wright
Louise Neri discusses the artist’s new exploration of glass works.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
Frieze Seoul 2023
September 7–9, 2023, booth C14
COEX, Seoul
www.frieze.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in Frieze Seoul 2023 with a presentation of contemporary works by gallery artists, including Derrick Adams, Georg Baselitz, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Jadé Fadojutimi, Urs Fischer, Cy Gavin, Mehdi Ghadyanloo, Nan Goldin, Katharina Grosse, Jennifer Guidi, Thomas Houseago, Alex Israel, Rick Lowe, Takashi Murakami, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Penone, Ed Ruscha, Alexandria Smith, Anna Weyant, Stanley Whitney, Jonas Wood, and Richard Wright, among others.
Coinciding with the fair is the arrival of Jiyoung Lee, who was recently appointed to lead the gallery’s operations in Korea. Lee joins Gagosian following nearly fifteen years based in Seoul working on behalf of both Korean and Western galleries. Her appointment builds on the gallery’s establishment of a business entity in Korea last year, and provides for expanded activities in the region.
Gagosian’s booth at Frieze Seoul 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Jadé Fadojutimi, © Jen Guidi, © Alexandria Smith, © Mehdi Ghadyanloo, © Rick Lowe Studio, © Jonas Wood, Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Talk and Book Signing
Richard Wright
Martin Clark
Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 7pm
Burlington Arcade, London
Join Gagosian for a conversation between Richard Wright and Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, London, to coincide with the artist’s solo exhibition at Gagosian, Davies Street, London. They will discuss Wright’s latest body of work, recent commissions, and new monograph, which provides a comprehensive overview of his practice between 2010 and 2020. Published by Gagosian, the book documents projects made for well-known public spaces and private residences around the world, and includes essays by Wright, Clark, and social anthropologist Tim Ingold as well as an in-depth conversation between the artist and Will Bradley, director of Kunsthall Oslo. After the talk, Wright will sign copies of the book, which will be available for purchase.
Richard Wright (New York: Gagosian, 2023)
Art Fair
West Bund Art & Design 2022
November 11–13, 2022, booth A102
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai
westbundshanghai.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in the ninth edition of West Bund Art & Design. The gallery will present new works made for the fair by Georg Baselitz, Roe Ethridge, Thomas Houseago, Alex Israel, Harmony Korine, Adam McEwen, Jim Shaw, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, and Tatiana Trouvé, alongside works by Ashley Bickerton, Urs Fischer, Katharina Grosse, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Nam June Paik, Richard Prince, Ugo Rondinone, Ed Ruscha, Richard Wright, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosian’s booth at West Bund Art & Design 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Adam McEwen, © Roe Ethridge, © Alex Israel, © Harmony Korine. Photo: JJYPHOTO
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Art Capital: Art for the Elizabeth Line
March 13–May 6, 2018
Whitechapel Gallery, London
www.whitechapelgallery.org
Art Capital: Art for the Elizabeth Line showcases nine internationally renowned artists and their plans to create major public artworks for London’s newest railway, the Elizabeth line. Each artist has been commissioned to create a work of art sympathetic to the locality, history, or function of one of the stations. The exhibition brings together sketches, maquettes, and prototypes to reveal the artists’ ideas transformed into deliverable public art. Work by Douglas Gordon and Richard Wright is included.
Douglas Gordon, Revue, 2018 © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2018. Photo: Balazs Studinger