Artist Interview: Richard Wilkinson

It’s no surprise that an artist who draws so much inspiration from nature should base himself on the coast surrounded by the South Downs. We met up with Richard at his local pub with his dog, Olive, to talk creatures, Borneo and Darren Aranofsky.

"I owe a lot of my creativity - and my love of the natural world - to my Dad. He loves art and painted a bit when he was younger, but he used to be a teacher and loved the idea of inspiring imagination and creating the right environment for creativity to grow. He would often take me on treks through woods pointing out fungi or insects or birds or plants with great enthusiasm and telling me why they were magical or miraculous in some way."

This visual fascination with flora and fauna has endured and Richard draws for 4-5 hours every day and while much of this is with his Apple Pencil in Procreate, he’s trying to create in the "real world” more, sketching thumbnail compositions in pencil to bring spontaneity back into his work and to battle his innate perfectionism.

His natural obsession with minute detail feeds into his own authorial practice but has also put him in line for some great commercial projects in recent years. "I really enjoyed working with animators Alchemy on ‘Limitless’ for Nutopia/NatGeo. Presented by Chris Hemsworth it’s a series about the effects of physical and psychological extremes on the way our bodies work.

The project involved creating lots of medically accurate but aesthetically interesting and engaging anatomical work, which is a love of mine anyway - its an artistic space that holds so much depth for me: its about life and death and strength and weakness but also has those fascinating aesthetic elements of diagram and simplification. And the artistic tradition is filled with so many incredible and world-changing works of art. It was incredibly gratifying to see my illustrations brought vividly to life by Alchemy and to sit in such a fascinating piece of TV.

Darren Aronofsky was the creator and producer behind ‘Limitless’ so it was very exciting to have my work in front of him and to have his seal of approval. I think his body of work as a director is incredible and I’d love to be involved creatively in some way in one of his films. Maybe an animation project!" And for more reading into that particular project you can visit our specific post here.

Illustrating hundreds of anatomical components hasn't dented Richard's love for exploring the natural world through a microscopic lens. "I’d love to be asked illustrate a compendium of creatures or plants, real or imaginary. It would go into great detail about the anatomy and physiology of each subject. Beautifully printed and bound.”

His studio is befitting that of someone who’s part artist - part scientific researcher... a total shambles! “The sheer mess makes it a bit cramped. If I could relocate for a year, I’d have a very light and spacious tree-house studio somewhere very biodiverse like Borneo or perhaps Kinabalu National Park in Malaysia, surrounded by plants and animals. If I had a project that involved illustrating some of the surrounding wildlife - even better.”

And there’s more than one reason to be drawn to the forests of Southeast Asia..."A great influence on me has been that of the cultural heritage of my wife, Natalie. She’s from a Burmese family (though born in England) and we have a son, Otto. As south-east asia is half of his cultural make-up, I’ve become more interested in and probably influenced by that culture myself. I love the art of that culture, especially the old scientific and religious illustrations and they have definitely influenced my work."

So what's next on the agenda?

“You never know what commercial project might be around the corner, but I’d love to collaborate with sci-fi writer Ted Chiang on something. A book or a graphic novel, or better yet an animated series. His ideas are incredible - he has an unmatched way of bringing very difficult and hard to reach philosophical concepts into the everyday human realm while still holding onto the elegance and scale of the ideas.”

So if you’re reading Mr Chiang, you know where we are!

You can see more of Richard's beautiful work here. 

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