Frances Richardson

Critical text

In the ink on paper series If I measure it must exist by Frances Richardson (b. 1965, Leeds), the drawing stems from observation of the everyday objects with which we surround ourselves, those we no longer notice or no longer use. We may not know how they have ended up in our lives, or how they have found us. Stopping to measure these objects, to think about their constituent lines, means reflecting on ourselves, since we have “adopted” them to the point of letting them represent us, as a collection of our own. To draw a bucket, or an open envelope, is a way to exist in their midst, touching them with the gaze. The objects around us take and grant the measure of our lives, like particles of our complex way of existing in the world.

Text by Irina Zucca Alessandrelli

The artist’s voice

My obsession with material, with matter, and enquiry of it through drawing and sculpture is in an attempt to find the measure of our existence in the world.