Tidying Up: Richard Nott

Rebecca Hossack is delighted to present the first exhibition of paintings by the British artist and former fashion designer Richard Nott. 

Hossack first met Nott in the early 1990s when he was selling clothes from a small shop in Golden Square under the label Workers for Freedom. He and his partner were brilliant fashion designers and the Workers for Freedom label was highly regarded - winner, amongst numerous accolades, of the British Fashion Council Fashion Designer of the Year Award in 1990. The Workers for Freedom legacy imbues his distinctive vision.

The label fulfilled its function. Nott worked for freedom, and now has a studio on the edge of the South Downs. His paintings reflect his environment - the scale of the rolling hills, the broad freedom of the boundless fields and the smooth curves of weather-worn stones; all have made their way into the forms and textures of his recurrent motifs.

The designer’s eye is matched by the maker’s hand. Nott’s painterly process informs and enriches each finished work. His initial gestural marks are bold, even violent. He then builds up healing layers of oil paint to hide and soften them, achieving a hard-won sense of purity and calm. It is, he says, ‘a tidying up of sorts.’