Richard Prince’s art practice has ranged over a number of themes but preeminent is that of the landscape. It is not simply the landscape of direct observation but rather it is a poetic landscape that reveals the often hidden, underlying structure or examines the intangible systems and ephemeral phenomena permeating our experience of land and place. Aspects of the landscape which have been the subject of his work have ranged from wind and erosion to the aurora borealis and other cosmological events. Much of his work questions our assumptions about conventional images of the the landscape and our knowledge of its systems and proposes unique, often mechanical or electronic solutions for their representation.
Richard Prince’s artistic process consists of thinking about the work in a very focused way similar to a design process. That process is a sort of internal questioning and examination of what the thing could look like and involves a lot of “if this, then that” deliberation. Not all models become realized at the proposed scale but if indeed that occurs, the piece is developed using the materials, technologies and procedures that seem most sensible. There are other circumstances that will influence the generation of a work. One already mentioned is the images that can be generated from the world of acquired knowledge but it is necessary to see that world of knowledge as broader than that of words and stories as we conventionally think of them and that is the world of the objects that surround us. They are another language, another form of knowing. In this exhibition there are a few pieces that were generated from the particular nature of a found object that provided for me sufficient poetic resonance to form the basis for the final sculpture.
Richard Prince has been exhibiting his work in art galleries across Canada and internationally since his first solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1972. His works are in many collections including the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Mendel Gallery in Saskatoon. His work has been acquired by many corporate and private collectors as well. Richard Prince attended the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history. He began teaching sculpture and studio arts in 1973 and joined the faculty at the Department of Fine Arts (now Art History, Visual Art and Theory) at the University of British Columbia in 1975 where he is now a Professor.
