Rick Eckersley: Maverick Consequence at Otomys Contemporary
Arts & Events - by Open Journal
14th October, 2020.
There can be no doubt that experiencing art and design engages the senses. That viewing art, no matter the medium, has the power to inspire both ripples and tidalwaves of response. It therefore stands to reason that, when a creative person ceases one avenue of artistic expression, a need to create and connect still remains, as does the ability to affect.
Rick Eckersley has occupied a seminal place within the creative industries for many decades. Renown as an Australian-based garden designer for much of his professional life, Rick’s landscape work has undergone an elemental transition in recent years. A health setback in 2016 laid bare the true depth of Rick’s affinity for the natural landscape and its powerful ability to create and conjure memories, leading to the manifestation of a new body of work entirely removed in application yet instinctually distinguished by the same thread of intent as his gardens.
The repercussion of Rick’s recovery amplified his already well established aesthetic principles for the arrangement of line, form, texture and scale. New constraints on his existing methodology effectively drew a line in the sand, delineating the moment Rick’s artistic pursuits settled into an intriguing new definition which challenges and mediates on human interaction with the natural landscape.
Shifting from a largely horizontal plane to the vertical has been a pragmatic outcome of Rick’s explorations of landscape documentation via the photographic medium. Much as his gardens were informed by a textural and contextual layering, Rick’s mixed medium abstract works have been realised through a journey anchored by experimentation and intentional risk taking.
Working with a diversity of disciplines including photography, collage and digital media to give a visual articulation of one’s cognitive responses to nature, Rick’s professional pivot has resulted in richly stratified works of kaleidoscopic beauty which wholly cement his fortitude as an artist.
Rick’s work is ultimately distinguished by two powerful themes – a gentle response to the natural landscape that sets an autonomy in motion, and a reflection of the consequence of small gestures. These overtures have superbly ricocheted off each and every facet of Rick’s life over time to now emerge through an entirely novel outcome that bears results as resonant as his gardens.
Maverick Consequence is an online exhibition running from 7th – 22nd October 2020.
Words courtesy of Otomys Contemporary with all artwork by Rick Eckersley.
Feature image of Rick Eckersley by Will Salter.
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