‘Aida_間_.’ – Richard Elderton

In ‘Aida_間_.’ Richard Elderton explores the Japanese concept of ma.

‘ma’ can loosely be translated into words like a space in between, or a beat. It’s this idea of a negative space that can be universally applied to music, poetry, the tea ceremony, even your diction – in regular conversations, art and architecture and so on. It’s similar to the idea of breathing space, giving things room to expand its potential.
—Richard Elderton

In these sublime oil paintings of the natural world, presented in the manner of still lifes, Elderton finds an appreciation for stillness, contemplating the pause or breath between moments. He heightens his subjects, framing them with deliberate negative space defined by contrasts in colour and brushwork.

With thick wet layered brushwork Elderton focuses in on central objects. His considered use of empty space both contextualises the foreground and sincerely speaks to the objecthood of the artwork.

I hope to lay bare the traces of decision making within the process, and distil an aesthetic appreciation for the craft of painting itself.
—Richard Elderton

Comparing his paintings to the art of bonsai and Japanese tea gardens, where the nature is replicated, studied and balanced with emptiness, Elderton blends landscape and still life with a sense of elegance and serenity. Investigating how we perceive and interpret nature, Elderton transforms perhaps mundane subject matter with a deeper sense of substance and space. Stones, clouds and trees have meaning brushed into them, immortalised within the canvas.

Read more about this body of work in our City Art Reader interview with Richard Elderton.