Richard Caldicott
Richard Caldicott is a contemporary artist born in 1962, currently living and working in London. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art, London (1987) Caldicott has exhibited on an international level extensively.
Richard Caldicott is best known for his photographs— abstract compositions of colours and geometric forms made from precise arrangements of Tupperware and other kitchen implements. While his use of such a mundane consumer product as Tupperware to create his exquisite photographic images could be considered ironic, Caldicott seems more focused on formal considerations than conceptual hijinks.
His photographs have been compared to the colour field paintings of the Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Focusing on pure form and colour, the British artist composes works in an almost notational, rhythmic way. His current series marks a departure from modernist serenity towards a focus on dynamism and force, compositions that mimic the forces of explosions and fractures. Caldicott’s photographs, drawings and paintings are inextricably linked through their minimal aesthetic and focus. Each series presents a clearly observable, visual sequence of events.
Sir Elton John, who owns one of the largest photography collections in the world and who is an avid collector of Caldicott’s work, wrote, “Richard has the unique ability to transform the medium of photography, creating something new, but still using the most traditional technique. Richard is one of those artists who elevate photography to an important and recognized form of contemporary expression.”
In his essay, Seeing through modernism: transparency, absence and construction, Derek Horton reflects: "In Caldicott's earlier works using Tupperware, what could be regarded as highly stylised photographs of a still-life 'subject' evolved into images from which the substance and identity of the photographed objects rapidly receded, emphasising the object-status of the photograph itself. This reduction to the essentials of an image that is practically abstract - and in which the depicted object is being abstracted from its context to the point where any reference to its nature or origin is erased - suggests that the photographic process, conventionally so linked to the reproduction of reality, is shifting towards the autonomous characteristics of 'non-objective' art.”