Richie Clarke ‘lays it bare’ with show at Atrium this Thursday

“I like the idea that there is a piece of art hidden in wood or stone or whatever the medium may be. And it’s up to the artist to reveal it.” So says woodcarver Richie Clarke, whose exhibition ‘Hidden In Wood II’ opens on Thursday September 15 in The Atrium.

Eight years on from his first display of works, the Mullingar man is eager to see how he has progressed as an artist.

“I’m very busy with public work but sometimes it’s nice to stand back and take a breath and artistically do some pieces that interest me rather than the client,” he said.

“It’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. You really are leaving yourself laid bare when you do an exhibition. You’re just saying ‘This is me’. But put it this way – I don’t care if people like it, love it or hate it, as long as they don’t ignore it. I would be highly insulted if someone walked by a piece and didn’t form an opinion.”

The Cullionbeg native says the pandemic lockdown provided a positive opportunity for him to rediscover his love of sketching and charcoal drawings, and they form a new element to his collection.

In fact, there will be up to 17 charcoal and pastel pieces arranged in portrait and landscape on launch night, as well as the large scale wooden sculptures, some up to eight feet high, for which Richie is known best.

“It’s exciting for me to bring that new element of drawings because people would rightly only know me from a woodcarving perspective. There’s going to be a serious mix of colours, textures, and themes even.”

Origins

Working to commission, Richie’s wood carving career grew naturally, but unexpectedly after he picked up a woodcarvers magazine.

“I wasn’t organised enough by the time I left school to know what I wanted to do, but I did know that I loved art.

“My first choice would have been to go to art college but that didn’t happen, I didn’t even have a portfolio. Reality kind of shakes you out of yourself a bit because it would have been the late ‘80s when I left school, and all my friends, my father, brother were all tradesmen so it was a natural progression to go down the trade route.”

Having walked out of a mechanical engineering course after just one year , “the best thing I ever did”, Richie began an apprenticeship in carpentry.

“I did that all throughout my 20s and 30s and eventually set up a workshop, which closed when the recession hit in 2007. Luckily, I had enough clients that I was able to keep going doing interior woodwork.”

Around that time Richie took up carving as a hobby. “I picked up a woodcarving magazine in the old Days Bazaar bookshop and immediately I was hooked. I sent off to England for a small set of tools and I started then, just messing about.

“It was just a hobby that I never thought would become anything but as I progressed, I bought more tools, and I realised this was something I really wanted to do but how could you make a living at woodcarving?!”

On a whim, Richie and his wife Jenny travelled to a woodcarving festival in Gloucestershire, where Canadian and American woodcarvers were coming to Europe for the first time, to do large scale woodcarving with chainsaws.

“I thought to myself ‘Wow, that sounds amazing’, and when I saw these guys standing in front of eight- and 10-foot-high logs with chainsaws and the pieces of art they were able to carve, I knew I had to learn or get into it in some way.”

With no one else doing it in Ireland, or at least teaching it, Richie invested in a chainsaw, and the rest as they say, is history.

“I suppose that little artistic element was still in me, and from the hand carving I had already done, I that three-dimensional thinking. I found I was able to get quick results while still getting used to the chainsaws and the handling of them.

“Suddenly I was able to sell the pieces I was making.

The first commission Richie received was at Belvedere House and Gardens, something that instilled “great confidence” and knowledge that he could work quickly and achieve results under pressure.

“I remember carving the Green Man over the course of the weekend, while the public interacted with me. It took me way out of my comfort zone but I realised that I could work under pressure.” That first job led to other commissions, The Hill of Uisneach for Festival of Fires, Electric Picnic, Body and Soul and Glastonbury.

He was asked to demo carve for Husqvarna, industry leaders in gardening tools, for the Ploughing Championships, which led to even bigger commissions and to Richie becoming a Husqvarna brand ambassador.

So followed jobs for Dublin Zoo, Fingal, Roscommon and Westmeath county councils.”I’ve been everywhere carving, from Belfast down to Sneem in County Kerry, from Galway to the east coast and back.”

Inspired by mythology, from Greek and Norse, to the Celts, Richie praises Miriam Mulrennan, Westmeath arts officer and her team for hosting the exhibition in The Atrium.

Hidden In Wood II will be launched by Marty Mulligan on Thursday September 15 in The Atrium at 6.15pm.

For more go to rcwoodcarving.com or Irish Woodcarving on Instagram.