Finding Freedom Between Order and Chaos
A face begins to emerge from a disorderly web of lines. Some marks are hurried and instinctive, others carefully considered, yet together they form an image that feels remarkably alive. In Adam Riches’ drawings, the unfinished is as important as the resolved. A portrait might appear to be on the verge of disappearing into abstraction, only to be brought back into focus by a handful of precisely placed marks.
Riches has built an internationally recognised practice around this interplay between control and spontaneity. Having rediscovered drawing in his twenties through a fascination with photorealism, he gradually abandoned technical precision in favour of a more instinctive approach. His distinctive monochrome portraits have since been exhibited internationally, from London and Miami to Moscow and Lisbon.
More recently, his attention has turned towards the sea. Living close to the North Sea, Riches has found in its shifting surfaces and unpredictable movement something that connects naturally with his exploration of the human form.
In this interview with The FLUX Review, Riches reflects on his unconventional route into art, the value of losing control and the small changes that can lead a familiar practice somewhere unexpected.
Your work has become very recognisable for its monochrome portraits and loose, scribbled line. How did that visual language first begin to emerge?
When I was a child, I used to doodle and draw from imagination quite a bit. When I left school, I didn’t really make much art at all. In my mid-twenties, I saw some photorealistic drawings online, and I really wanted to learn how it was possible to do something like that. This was my reintroduction to art.
After a while, I found making photorealistic work quite predictable, and it became a little boring for me. When I went to university, I gradually moved away from photorealism and back towards something looser and more expressive.
I would say the monochrome comes from drawing in one colour with pencil or pen. Painting in monochrome just feels like an extension of drawing.
There is often a tension in your portraits between control and something much more spontaneous. How much do you allow yourself to lose control while you are drawing?
I find that when I lose control while drawing, those drawings often end up being the most successful. I’ll often start very loosely and then gradually pull areas of the drawing into something a little more controlled. It’s like trying to strike a balance between order and chaos.
Your figures can feel introspective, uneasy or emotionally distant. Are you usually working from a specific feeling, or do those moods emerge afterwards?
A lot of the time, I’m working intuitively. The work just seems to come out that way. It’s just something that happens naturally.
You have spoken about drawing beginning almost as doodling before becoming central to your career. What was it that made you realise this way of working had real potential?
I think I started to see its potential when I became a little more deliberate about the process, working on a single piece of paper with the idea of making these kinds of drawings. Filming the process was not only interesting for me, but it seemed to be interesting for other people too.
Why do you think monochrome continues to suit your work so well?
I think I’m just aesthetically drawn to monochrome. Obviously, drawing with a pen lends itself to monochrome because you’re usually working with one colour. But with paint, I find that working spontaneously, using only light and dark values rather than the complication of colour, lends itself to spontaneity.
Faces are such a consistent subject in your practice. What is it about the human face that still feels unresolved or interesting to you?
I always seem to lean towards wanting to draw the human face, form or figure, and organic, flowing shapes that have the potential for some kind of rhythm in the marks I’m making. I’ve never had the same feeling from drawing something with geometric shapes.
Your drawings often seem to reveal and obscure the subject at the same time. Is that ambiguity something you consciously look for?
The drawing process usually starts with putting marks down onto the paper and then gradually pulling a form out of the marks. As I’m making the work, it’s a question of how far to refine certain parts and how much to leave as they are.
Most of the time, I just get a feeling for when to stop. Working like that leaves certain areas unfinished, and a lot of the time, when I refine too much, the drawing or the work loses something. So it’s more about which areas are worked on more and which are left unrefined.
Do you work differently when drawing somebody you know compared with a stranger or photographic reference?
In some ways, it can be helpful to work from a photographic reference. It gives a starting point and gives the work some kind of anchor in reality, rather than working just from memory.
But striving for a likeness and trying to keep the looseness can be challenging. Some of the spontaneity of working intuitively can be lost. So I have to try to find a balance between finding a likeness and not losing the energy of working intuitively.
You have exhibited your work internationally, from London and Miami to Moscow and Lisbon. Has seeing the work in very different contexts changed the way you think about it?
Not really, if I’m honest. I don’t think about the work too much once it’s done. For me, the interesting part is the process, the making of the work.
But it’s gratifying to me that people from different parts of the world are interested in something I’ve done. I think that’s one of the cool things about art, that visual language transcends cultures.
You have taken part in a number of residencies over the years. Do you find that being removed from your usual environment changes the way you work?
I think it does, very much so. I remember a particular residency I did for a month. I bought canvases while I was there and used materials I’d sourced there, so I had to work with materials and in an environment that were a little different from how I’d normally work at home. I think the work was more interesting for it.
But it doesn’t even need to be a residency. I’ve found that just reordering my room, changing the surface I’m working on, or changing the way things are positioned in the room can have a similar effect. It can make you think about things differently and change things up a little bit.
You don’t necessarily need to go to a different country or place, although that’s great because you also get to meet new people and explore the culture.
Your work is immediately identifiable, which can be both an advantage and a challenge for an artist. How do you keep pushing the work forward without losing what makes it yours?
I don’t think so much about that. I think I just kind of go with how I feel. I make what I’m drawn towards doing.
Sometimes, to keep things interesting for myself, I try experimenting with different materials, even if it’s something slight, like using a different type of pen, working at a different size, or working on a different coloured ground. Just a little change can take what I’m doing in a different direction.
I’m a believer that ideas are generated from the process. If you’re making work, ideas can emerge from that process.
What are you most interested in exploring in the studio at the moment?
Over the last few years, I’ve been painting the sea. I live quite close to the North Sea, and I’ve taken a couple of trips across the North Sea and the English Channel in the last few years.
Painting the sea has been really interesting for me. I’m generally still working in monochrome, and with the sea, it feels like there’s more freedom to really let go in the process, while still pulling the work back towards something that’s very recognisable to me.
There’s a rhythm and fluidity to painting the sea, much like there is to painting the human form. This is something I’ve really enjoyed exploring over the last few years.