“Experiments with painting, ideas and thinning the medium with lots of water, has been my passion, and ongoing center of investigation ever since I finished the Funen Art Academy DK.
I make use of the different ways pigments dry up and how the texture can interact.
I want my painting to seem effortless, but in reality it is based on a lot of failure and try-outs before the perfect stroke and energy beams from the finished work.”
Indigo Richards’ practice is rooted in an ongoing investigation of the materiality of painting and its inherent processes. Since graduating from Funen Art Academy, she has worked experimentally with the dilution of the painting medium, using water as an active participant in the formation of the image. Through layered applications of fluid pigments, she explores how colors dry, flow, and settle, and how these processes generate unpredictable textures and visual tensions.
Her motifs often revolve around fragments and abstractions of the immediate and the lived: natural forms, everyday observations, and elements from her surroundings. Mushrooms from the studio lawn, cacti from artist residencies, neighbors, and industrial landscapes such as the waste formations near the harbor in Odense serve as points of departure, which are transformed into painterly structures and rhythms.
She has developed a distinctive technique based on fluid layers of color and wet-on-wet processes, working with watercolor, acrylic, and water-based oil on canvas in a continuous negotiation between control and dissolution.
In 2024, Richards presented the solo exhibition A Haven at Galleri ArtC, based on an artist residency in Oaxaca, Mexico (2023). In 2023, she exhibited Metal Mountain at Galleri Sandberg, inspired by a mountain of waste at the harbor in Odense where her studio is located. Earlier, botanical studies referencing Carl von Linné formed the basis of the exhibition ARTER (2009) at Gallerie Rasmus and Det Ny Kastet in Thisted.
Together with the art group QWERTY, Richards has exhibited internationally, including in New York, Stockholm, Helsinki, Lisbon, and Berlin
På Dansk:
Indigo Richards’ praksis tager afsæt i en vedvarende undersøgelse af maleriets materialitet og dets iboende processer. Siden hun dimitterede fra Det Fynske Kunstakademi i 1993 har hun arbejdet eksperimenterende med fortynding af malingen med vand som aktiv medspiller i billedets tilblivelse. Gennem lag på lag af vandige farver udforsker hun, hvordan malingen tørrer, flyder og aflejres, og hvordan disse processer skaber uforudsigelige teksturer og visuelle spændinger.
Richards arbejder bevidst med et malerisk udtryk, der fremstår umiddelbart og ubesværet. Denne tilsyneladende lethed dækker dog over en omfattende, procesbaseret praksis præget af gentagelser, fejl og forsøg. Det er gennem denne vedholdende afsøgning, at det præcise strøg og værkets energi opstår.
Motivisk kredser hendes værker ofte om fragmenter og abstraktioner af det nære og det levede: naturformer, hverdagslige observationer og omgivelser fra hendes eget liv. Svampe fra atelierets græsplæne, kaktus fra kunstophold i Mexico, naboer og industrielle landskaber som affaldsbjerget ved havnen i Odense indgår som visuelle afsæt, der transformeres til maleriske strukturer og rytmer.
Hun har udviklet en særegen teknik baseret på flydende farvelag og vådt-i-vådt—processer, hvor materialer som akvarel, akryl og vandbaseret olie anvendes på lærredet i en kontinuerlig forhandling mellem kontrol og opløsning.
I 2025 præsenterede hun projektet SOLOPGANG på Hollufgård i Odense (malerier) sammen med kunstneren Tine Louise Kortermand (sangperformance og installation) i 2024 A Haven hos Galleri ArtC, baseret på ophold i Oaxaca, Mexico (2023). I 2023 viste hun Metal Mountain hos Galleri Sandberg, inspireret af affaldsbjerget ved Odense Havn. Tidligere har botaniske studier med reference til Carl von Linné dannet grundlag for udstillingen ARTER (2009) hos Gallerie Rasmus og Det Ny Kastet i Thisted.
Som del af kunstnergruppen QWERTY har Richards udstillet internationalt, herunder i New York, Stockholm, Helsinki, Lissabon og Berlin
Armpit painting performance at Juxtapose Art Fair 2021, Århus, Godsbanen with QWERTY. https://www.juxtaposeartfair.com/