About Richard

Richard Coan is a multidisciplinary artist based in the North West of England.

Before developing his fine art practice, Richard spent many years working as a graphic designer and creative director. His background in communication and visual storytelling continues to influence the way he makes and thinks.

Richard has been making and experimenting for many years. More recently, he has begun to recognise that the different things he has been making (and the residencies he has initiated to explore particular places and questions), aren’t isolated projects, but part of a developing multidisciplinary artistic practice.

His work brings together making, noticing and capturing, often through ongoing creative conversations with people and places.

Artistic Statement

I process by making, exploring how we relate to ourselves and each other… as individuals, communities and cultures.

At the heart of this exploration, a question is forming: How might we be more fully alive in our own lives, and in relationship with one another and the world?

Making is how I discover my relationship with the world.

I don’t begin with a message. I begin with attention. Something catches my eye, my curiosity or my imagination. Through making, I explore my relationship with life. As I make, I notice things I couldn’t previously see.

Rather than arriving with predetermined outcomes, I respond creatively to what emerges through attention, making and conversation. Sometimes those discoveries raise questions of meaning, worth and connection. They may be encountered in the everyday, the physical or the spiritual.

The work may take the form of photographs, films, songs, poems, publications, installations or participatory experiences. The medium isn’t the starting point; it follows the enquiry.

I don’t think of my work as a series of completed projects. Returning to a place isn’t repeating the work. It’s continuing the conversation.

If those discoveries resonate with others, the work becomes a shared act of noticing.