Penny Choate & Donald Richardson – Commonalities +

Penny Choate and Donald Richardson have been together for many years, but they have separate studios and entirely separate practices.  While both paint (and love the smell of oil-paint!), Donald is also a sculptor.  Both have a great respect for the recognised masters of the ancient and modern past, and the work shown here does homage to them; but their own work never imitates – each have their own trajectory based on their life experiences and education.

Although they respect each other’s work mutually, they rarely discuss it.  They just get on with doing it.

Penny’s work is usually more representational.  It layers themes, some of which are autobiographical and refer to women’s issues.  There is more than a touch of magical realism.

Donald is more of a formalist.  He believes that Marcel Duchamp is largely unrecognised as the greatest philosopher of Modernism, who releases artists to use new materials as well as traditional, and – in doing so – respect their properties.