Rick Clarke PhD

It all started when a witch crawled out of my sock drawer...…

Well, in truth, it probably started a little before the witch incident. I am a professional artist who has worked in London artist studios for years. I studied fine art in Canterbury and later went to Sunderland to complete an MA in painting, sculpture and printmaking.

After my studies I worked in several artist co-operatives, one of which was converting an old coffee warehouse on the Thames into a print studio and gallery. After discovering a full sized stuffed bear in the toilet, I also learnt that, during the Elizabethan period, the site of the warehouse had been a bear pit.

At this time I became acquainted with full time artists and began working in several art studios belonging to members of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. My time at Brenda Hartill’s studio, a renowned collage artist and printmaker, led to our collaboration on Collagraphs & Mixed Media Printmaking, a book published by Bloomsbury.

I also spent four and a half years as an artist assistant with Trevor Price, a gifted and dedicated professional painter and printmaker who has become Vice-President of the Royal Society of Printmakers and one of Britain’s leading printmakers.

Going it alone wasn’t a straightforward jouney. Having successfully set up my own painting and printmaking studio in an old peanut factory in the East End for several years, I decided to go into teaching at Kingston University, where I gained a PhD in the history of the French Revolution and spent four years lecturing.

I am now living in south-east London and have a studio in Woolwich, on the Thames. I have a beautiful young daughter, who is already a far better artist than me, and several Texan hounds, who like to eat any art work that is hanging around.

As for the witch in the sock drawer, well, you would have to ask my two hungry Texan dogs what happened to her…..

.