Richard J. Price

Born in West Germany (August 15, 1966) Richard J. Price is part of the generation of British artists and writers that grew to prominence in the 1990s and a former member of the National Artists Association.

Artwork

Most of his visual art has been produced in the form of acrylic paintings in a modern primitivist style, with characters having a flat, primitive appearance against vivid, brightly coloured backgrounds. As far as can be ascertained he has no formal training or higher education qualifications in art.

Written work

In contrast, his written output consists of dark, sombre subject matter presented in a way as to convey the despair and hopelessness that many people feel in a society that has grown too big for them to feel significant.

Much of it is hard hitting, and very much aimed at mature readers, however, some of his lighter work has edged its way gradually onto school and college 'essential reading' lists.

There seems little to support him citing HP Lovecraft as a major influence on his written work, much of it reads like a hybrid of a modern day Dylan Thomas and William S Burroughs. He brings to life a side of modern society in the UK that is carefully hidden by the national tourist board, poor quality housing, social decay, low expectations of life and addiction to hard drugs. He manages to convey these images with a sense of realism and an undercurrent of dark humour.

Reproduced with kind permission:

Down (abridged)Copyright (c) Richard J. Price 2005All Rights Reserved.

Babel is crushed in on itself,Goodbye to the twentieth century villageand hello sky,as machines uncreate what machines once created,their steel reinforced concrete obelisk,a phallic mockery of how far up the evolutionary ladder we have climbed,construction technology,yet at the same time oh how far we have descended.Social decline.mans aspiration to move ever upwards,to reach the sky and reach god,instead achieves excrement graffiti and urine stenched stairwells,tip toe through the discarded and rusty syringes containing the last lifeblood of the ever growing crematorium tribe,raping and mugging their way ever closer to the heroine hell that they temporarily created on earth.Am I to pity or hate these flame engulfed zombies,or merely to remember and speak?

He has also written a number of mainstream magazine and newspaper articles and plays bass guitar in a bizarre industrial metal band called 'Projekt Auslander'.

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Information source: Valkyrie Arts (www.vduk.com)

Published work:

Homage to St Vladivar (2000) - Valkyrie Press

Right Between the Eyes (2005) - vdUK