Richard Snowden's vision is unencumbered by formal art education. Instead he has his own natural and assured line and an idiosyncratic, even anarchic, approach to colour.

He has to paint. It is a release for him and he fills sketchbook after sketchbook, searching to perfect an image before it is translated to canvas. He often makes random marks on the paper even before addressing the subject in his haste to start the creative process. When working at life class he will complete twenty images before his colleagues have produced one.

When asked what makes him paint, he replies ‘Life’ before correcting himself: ‘No. Colour. It’s colour.’ I would suggest that Life inspires him to paint but Colour drives him on.

Richard is part colour blind and his feel for colour, like his line, is instinctive. He uses colour as he feels it, not as we see it. His trees are rarely green, although frequently his subjects’ hair is - or purple or blue. He says: “I don’t try to make things look the predicted colour, the colour one thinks they should be. Every so often I hit the right colour, but those paintings seldom leave the studio.”