Trevor Richards is widely recognised for his formally structured, minimalist approach to painting that is informed by his sustained engagement with a limited range of colours and an admiration for the commonplace.

Field Map 1 is from the beginning of Richards’ BYOG project, conceived as an exploration of four signature colours - blue, yellow, orange and green. In this work Richards is interested in the juxtaposition or merging of ideas connected with minimalism and the materiality of landscape.

This work is multi layered, with the painting ground prepared using ply, sand, glue and paint. A grid of circular dots act as coordinates to map the surface plane. Using oil paint and a caulking gun, a field of thin vertical lines are laid vertically over the dots, meandering across the surface like trickling water. Repeated washes of thinned paint have been then applied, responding to the paintwork underneath.

The title Field Map 1 suggests both the painting as a ‘field’ that has been mapped with paint in the formal sense, and also could be interpreted as a record of natural phenomena, given the earthiness of the colour and texture it embodies.

Winner of the 1998 Invitation Art Prize