Interview: Victoria Rose Richards
Luca Curci talks with Victoria Rose Richards during FUTURE LANDSCAPES, second appointment of the 19th edition of VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2024, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

Victoria Rose Richards is an autistic embroidery artist from Devon, UK. In living in the countryside in a place of outstanding natural beauty, Victoria is surrounded by inspiration for their art in the endless fields and meadows, lush forests, winding rivers and reaching moorland. Now, four years after starting embroidery landscapes, she has specialised in aerial views and uses a combination of stitches on felt sheets to create aerial landscapes based on the Devon countryside. Victoria is particularly inspired by the shapes that naturally form in the land and are made to form by agriculture, seemingly perfectly fitted together yet forced… she also loves the feelings of nostalgia the form and colours of the countryside can invoke. How many people have fond memories of visiting the countryside as a child? In these idealized scenes, Victoria tries to express a nostalgia that is both comforting and bittersweet, bringing back rose-tinted memories of simpler days past.

Luca Curci- What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
Victoria Rose Richards- My background isn’t actually in an art degree. I was very creative as a child and teen in various ways, experimenting with paintings of various types, models and paper art. However, none of them grabbed me long-term and I decided to go to university to do a Biological Sciences degree at the University of Exeter. I really loved this and was especially drawn to marine and ecological science, completing my dissertation on soil microbiology in the spring/summer of 2019. I would say my science degree did influence my future art to an extent – I did a small series of tropical island pieces in the spring 2019 that were actually my unofficial first aerials, which I’d been inspired to do by mine. After finishing my degree, it did to a small extent influence me going forward. I often find myself thinking of the ecological aspects and what I’d learnt while building the landscapes.

LC- How did you get to your current artistic practice?
VRR- Where I’ve ended up has largely been by chance. I began embroidery as a whole back in 2018 after looking for something to spend my free time on at university – I was experiencing upsetting lows and stress from work and thought something creative would help. I stumbled across some embroidery landscapes online and was fascinated by the medium! I did standard landscapes until the summer of 2019, when I did my first aerial embroidery landscape. This really clicked for me – a gripe I had with my other pieces was I wasn’t drawn to the sky aspect, I enjoyed the landscape itself much more and the sky was an afterthought. Aerials solved this problem but I was also very drawn to the geometric shapes and textures visible from above. Since then, I’ve been almost completely focused on aerials.

LC- Is there an unrealised or unrealisable project, even a crazy one, that you would like to work on?
VRR- There is! I’ve had a couple of ideas for more 3D landscapes that I haven’t been able to plan out quite yet – the main one is a volcano, and another is a multi-tiered waterfall. How I’d go about the tiers yet I’m not sure – somehow attached multiple hoops together with a frame maybe, although the frame would have to be hidden too. Something for the future when I can get my head around it!

LC- How is being an artist nowadays?
VRR- Easier and harder for the same reason… social media. It has made it easier to reach people and share my art with others, find others who do similar, build community and find potential clients. However, if you’re not careful or mindful, it can also limit your creativity – for example ‘trends’ and sites like Instagram introducing reels means you have to think more about what will go viral by catching attention and if one thing works, you’re inclined to keep doing that thing and not branch out to keep getting that audience reach. I got caught by that once in the opposite way – something I was experimenting with in my embroidery wasn’t getting as many views so I abandoned it, and now I wonder why I let that happen… I’d let views and reach rule over my creativity and I shouldn’t have because I was genuinely interested in this thing. On a separate note, you have to be careful with the cost of living going up. Art is a ‘luxury item’, not a necessity, so when more people are financially limited sales can get stunted for a while. You need to be able to tide those times over and not all can and end up having to abandon their art practice for more usual jobs. I’m very lucky that I’m not experiencing this but I know a couple who are who rely on sales to meet their rent every month and another who had to go back to their old 9-5 due to it. But despite the financial stress it can cause, I think we all still find being an artist very fulfilling – in the age of AI art and mass-produced items, still creating something by hand and putting a piece of ourselves into it feels very special. When we reach the end of a piece and can sit back and look at it, and we know it can from our minds and hands.

LC- Do you use art to express something in particular? Is it your medium of expression?
VRR- I like to think my art expresses nostalgia more than anything. Many say it gives them this sense, reminding them of countryside drives as a child or visiting their grandparent’s farm. I also find nostalgia in them – many are at least inspired by my home county of Devon and some by what I can see from my bedroom window! I suppose my art is a medium of expression for me.

LC- What do you think about the concept of this exhibition? How did it inspire you?
VRR- I did find it inspiring outside of my art – seeing all the different interpretations and expressions of it in multiple media, how others viewed the theme in ways I never did, is very interesting. It opens my own mind up for future pieces!

LC- What is the message linked to the artwork you have shown in this event? How is it connected to the theme of the entire exhibition?
VRR- Perhaps more in how human influence shapes our environment and landscapes around us. The main focus of many of my pieces, and certainly the two I entered into the exhibitions, are the fields and their shapes. They fascinate me… how they seemingly fit perfectly yet forced, human influence shaping them the way we want over centuries and will continue to but still the natural landscape sneaks through, like the snaking rivers we have work around. I wonder how the fields of the future will look.