Richard Adams grew up in Wiltshire in the 1960s. He studied illustration at Leicester Polytechnic and went on to freelance, winning many illustration awards during the 1980s.

He began to exhibit his personal work in 1991 and now lives in East Sussex where he devotes all his time to creating works for exhibition.

His work depicts the English countryside and seaside and is inspired by his long-held loves for English vernacular architecture, rural history and our native flora and fauna.

Yet the true subject of Adams’ work is the imagination. His flights of fancy create a bucolic world peopled with characters in simple, domestic and rural pursuits. Everyday life takes on a fiction of endless sunshine and joyful leisure where fairies inhabit mystical sites and the fantastic sits comfortably in the natural world.

Likened to the eccentric visionaries, Spencer and Dadd his work follows in a tradition of British image making which he refreshes with his wit and humour. His unique, uplifting images convey a view which is ultimately optimistic and life-affirming.

Collection Billy and Pamela Connolly.