Rick lives in the Northern Rivers of NSW working as an artist, designer and photographer.

After years of commercial work, Rick wanted more creative freedom. In 2023, he began exploring other avenues for his art, picking up a paintbrush and studying at Byron School of Art.

His abstract mixed media paintings and assemblages draw inspiration from aerial photographs that he has captured of rural Australia. He says “At 500 feet the landscape becomes an exceptional quilt of shapes, texture, rhythms, and colour. These photos along with childhood memories of flying with my parents in their light aircraft, inform the base of my work.”

Initial marks suggest roads, fences and creeks intersecting with crops, bare earth, and remnants of the original bush. As layers build and shapes are simplified or added they become abstract compositions that suggest more than the original landscape.

Texture plays a major role in the formation of the work incorporating paper, plaster and wood carving with assemblages combining distressed metal and found objects.

Rick has worked extensively across the creative industry, running his own design and photography studio as well as an award winning ethical homewares label. He has held two successful solo photography exhibitions, been a two-time finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize and included in several emerging art shows.