Work of Rick Kemp

Sat/Sun 2nd Sept to Oct 29th 11am-5pm. Open Bank Holidays and during the week by appointment.

Rick Kemp: Artist Statement

From the tender age of fifteen (the year that my band The Ravens won the All England Skiffle competition at the Café de Paris) I have been a musician and performer.

Throughout what turned into a busy career, a brief brush with King Crimson (6 weeks), 16 albums with Michael Chapman, and of course work with seminal folk rock band Steeleye Span for over 17 years and worked on over 200 albums. I have always made art.

Mostly three dimensional structures and installations of various sizes and although I took a degree course in Fine Art BA (hons) in my early fifties it is only recently that I have developed the same passion for making art as I have always had for making music; increasingly one informs the other.

Both art and music follow the same pattern. First the idea then the making followed by some form of presentation ie: exhibition or concert. Working almost entirely in abstraction I hope that the ideas follow through at least in some measure to the observer as any attempt to explain ideas invariably seems pretentious. That said, I’ll risk saying that I am always grateful for the improvement in self awareness which I believe any creative endeavour brings about. At last a belief I can believe in.