From an article in The Core, by Doug Falconer:
We know Harcourt is a place with hidden treasures, but perhaps not many of its residents would necessarily name the arts among them. Yet we have among us a significant – and increasing – number of talented, often successful, occasionally illustrious, practitioners from across the spectrum of the art world. During the recent Castlemaine State Festival, many Harcourt residents and visitors were lucky enough to encounter a fascinating artist in residence at the Heritage Centre. Richard Baxter has been making extraordinary art for decades, and now calls Harcourt home. Born and raised in the Barossa Valley before a stint in Melbourne, Richard moved to a beautiful property in Harcourt North with his partner Mek and baby son late last year after looking in a wide arc around Melbourne for just the right place. He is inspired by the granite hills landscape and it is starting to be incorporated into his work. He admits to being something of an unwilling starter in the painting game. The youngest of three boys, he loved and admired the brilliant drawing skills of his next youngest sibling, 13 years his senior. While his brother did not pursue the arts, Richard persevered with drawing until one day a teacher literally forced him to complete a painting. When it was done paint had a new fan, and he has been developing his skills with the brush in the 30 years since. Richard’s paintings are big. Really big, in every sense. They are physically large, brightly coloured, fantastical and emotive. On the one hand hyper-realistic, he juxtaposes figures, objects, animals and natural features to create a strange and marvellous universe where absolutely anything is possible. He calls them “lost visions of beauty”. Houses fly, inanimate objects animate, animals communicate, celestial bodies swoop and dance, human figures strain and contort. The technical skill he displays is remarkable, and the effect is both disturbing and comforting at the same time. This way of viewing the world has resulted in Richard becoming an outstanding photographer and digital artist, too. His photographs share the painterly approach with his art, and he maintains a staggering number of images in his archives. He regularly draws these into Photoshop to make new “sketch” compositions, which form the basis of new paintings or remain in the digital realm as discrete works. He even creates animations from some of them. His art is painstaking and takes time; works regularly take months to complete – the lucky ones seeing him at the Heritage Centre would attest to that – and he often has several on the go at one time. During the Festival, he worked on a triptych titled “Memory Drift” that has been in development for years. The central panel of this work, featuring the ramshackle flying house, was shortlisted for the prestigious Sulman Prize last year. The (now signature) actual house exists somewhere in central Victoria – perhaps you’ve seen it! Naturally, as an accomplished digital artist, Richard has a fresh and exciting presence on the World Wide Web. His website – www.studiobaxter.com – has a wonderful array of examples of his work in all four mediums, and is well worth a visit. He also maintains a Facebook page with regular updates about his life and work – type ‘Richard Baxter Artist’ in the FB search field. Richard has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows in Australia and overseas, and is represented by Traffic Jam Galleries in Sydney and Hotham Street Contemporary in the Melbourne CBD, where he is this month’s Showcase artist.
