Richard Bourne

Richard Bourne is an English born painter originally from the Sussex/Surrey/London region who has been living predominantly in Cologne, Germany for the last ten years. Prior to this, Richard lived in both Malta and Gozo for a combined ten year period. 

He produced some innovative concepts within his early work in the first decade of the new Millennium that includes random experimental work. In particular, using mathematical equations and random strategy paintings. In addition, he created art within other ground breaking areas such as food on canvas and acrylic on sponge although he primarily works with acrylic on canvas.

After initially producing smaller sized canvases, Bourne was encouraged to paint much larger canvases, principally in an abstract style. The largest of these ‘The Rhythm Divine’ was slightly over 4 metres in length and was first exhibited to the public in 2015 at the Government Exhibition Halls in Victoria. This exhibition was opened by the President of Gozo and curated by Simon Sultana Harkins.

In 2009 Richard won the prestigious International Art Biennale Award for his 2.25 metre square painting ‘Live Life Connections’. This was a truly innovative idea and incorporated 68 people from Malta onto a 2.25 metre square canvas with each person randomly choosing their own square and colour from two respective pots which was then incorporated onto the canvas. The work also included three elements of Maltese cultural emblems incorporated into the painting to showcase the broad colours of Malta as a whole and the piece is a tribute to the islands. This canvas took 6 months to complete and was the third in a line of random concepts Richard was engaged within, that were first shown at his successful Portomaso Exhibition in 2010.

Richard worked on major art pieces with the co-operation of the famous Swiss music legends Yello, UK music chart star Karel Fialka and Ira Losco. British music band Depeche Mode have been used as a source of inspiration for painting pieces within his ‘Canvas Music’ concept.

As a respected professional songwriter, Richard also found a pioneering way of writing songs from the 'Canvas Music' paintings and later of producing remixes too. The first two released songs using this idea were the songs 'Obsession' and 'I Rode That Tide With The Starry-Eyed' from the Racecar/Karel Fialka album 'Peace v War' in 2016 on PVW Records, although songs were written using this method by Bourne prior to this release.

Unfortunately, on moving to Germany in January 2016 where his son Leonardo was born the previous October, Richard had a stroke within two months of locating to the Cologne area. This signalled an immediate stop on Bourne’s art career and he was unable to paint for a number of years. While Richard learnt to paint again, he discovered WPAP, the cubist inspired style of geometric pop art. He digitally produced dozens of these portraits as a music and sport VA concept, via computer to keep himself creatively occupied.

In 2019 and able to paint once more, Bourne produced a number of ‘Canvas Music’ commissions that were purchased by music artists such as Muse, OMD, Lucinda Sieger and a large commission for the Mountview Recording Studio in Hertfordshire in England, of The Beatles song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’

Bourne’s paintings and art have been used as the front covers on various books including: ‘Depeche Mode: Violator - The Ultimate A&R Guide,’ in 2018. In addition, the Abba book 'Voyage - The Guide' and the Neil McAffer tennis self help book ‘Deep Down Inside’ 2024. Released in late spring 2026 will be the 'Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department Companion Book’, decorated on the front cover with 5 Bourne art pieces.

During 2021, following bursitis, Richard’s frustration at not being able to paint with his ‘left hand’ was evidently dominant. Especially, in a series of ‘right handed’ paintings all sized 115 cm x 75 cm titled ‘The Paradise Of Despair.’ Unsurprisingly, Bourne was generally unhappy on not being able to offer the quality of his previous concepts using his unnatural hand. However, he successfully attempts to evoke the idea of a black and white photo on a canvas in the final piece ‘Cave Dweller - The Resurrection of Ian Curtis’. There is a possibility of taking this type of concept forward based on ‘Cave Dweller,’ at some juncture, in the future.

In 2023, Bourne originated a new concept titled ‘Secondary Drowning’ that he had conceived and researched thoroughly in 2021 and 2022. ‘Secondary Drowning’ is loosely based on Piet Mondrian’s primary colour geometric abstract stylings and initial feedback and responses from those in the art community have been phenomenally positive.

In 2026 is a full collection of Taylor Swift paintings will be released with the first being available in late March early April.

Dorina Ceteras

Richard Bourne Biography

Richard Bourne's Gallery

Many pieces are for sale. For more details (price/size/medium) click on 'Store' or contact us at Silverscope@btconnect.com or call +49 1578 1053121.

Canvas Music Concept

What Is Canvas Music?

Explaining Canvas Music

Richard Bourne created a new art concept for a mammoth one month solo exhibition in 2015 called ‘Canvas Music’ that was originally scheduled to promote Depeche Mode songs. ‘Canvas Music’ cross fertilises Richard’s two foremost loves, namely Art and Music and fashions a stupefying hybrid of devices and codes to paint songs on canvas in colour form.

By 2015, Richard had worked as a professional in the music industry for over 30 years with millions of sales as an A&R man (Warners/BBC/IMN/IMG/Southside/Ncompass/M2D) and as an artist manager for Mick Karn of Japan, Bill Pritchard and ex members of the group Steps. In addition, as an excellent award winning songwriter and producer. On the art scene Richard became an International Art Biennale award winner in 2009 whilst working ironically on a David Bowie album. Working professionally in both areas (albeit under different names), Richard's work is exclusive in that he is one of the few people in the world able to establish an art/music hybrid to create a pioneering system of painting music through extensive knowledge and understanding of both areas in a professional capacity.

Working within a fascinating array of colours, textures and styles intermeshed with mathematical ideas to interpret notational music into a colour language using various formulas to create one system. This gives the possibility of allowing every song ever written to be transformed into an individual painting or simply put - as ‘Canvas Music’. Whether this is a concerto by Mozart, a song by Abba or Drake or an 8 bar song you made up and sang as a child. Every song in the world can be painted and every painting would be unique.

The idea of ‘Canvas Music’ involves 6 (sometimes 7) mathematical formulas and 3 further independent painting techniques to construct each individual painting. This concept of ‘Canvas Music’ took from between 2009 to 2015 to assemble the correct formulas from countless permutations of colour, styles and mathematical thought processes during that 6 year period and even now in 2026 occasionally evolves still with an added or subtracted formula.

'Canvas Music''s foundation centred as an idea inspired by a conversation in the village of Vordemwald in Switzerland, the understanding of the mathematical constant of Pi and Leonardo da Vinci’s perceptions of the link between music, mathematics and the universe. Later ideas involving synesthesia whereby some people see music as colour were also added to this distinctive concept. This was due in part to a conversation Richard had with the famous musician and singer Emile Ford in Suffolk around 1996. Emile worked on Pink Floyd’s ‘Division Bell’ in the capacity of advisor and consultant in relation to synesthesia. Fascinatingly for Richard’s studies/formulas he found that the artist David Hockney also has synesthesia as do/did Stevie Wonder, Vincent Van Gogh, Tori Amos, Kanye West, Billy Joel, Leonard Bernstein, Pharrell Williams, Franz Liszt, Duke Ellington and Eddie Van Halen among many creative talents. It is widely purported that Kate Bush, Wassily Kandinsky, Jimi Hendrix and Syd Barrett also have or had synesthesia.

Next it was imperative for Richard to thoroughly understand music notation and he was taught extensively by one of the world’s predominant music transcribers’ Peter Wilson. Richard then studied the top 250 selling songs of all time by a complex system of dismantling each individual song part by part, scrutinising them and then reassembling each one and Richard discovered that certain systems and structures were developed by some professional songwriters with a direct correlation to the way that major pieces of art in the art world were also developed. He also determined that early religious music notation had an important role to play by incorporating some of these systems. These systems use a series of mathematical formulas that when reproduced as ‘Canvas Music’ generate songs or pieces of music as visual pieces rather than aural pieces.

Writing New Songs from 'Canvas Music'

Having already invented 'Canvas Music' as interpretations of music as colour formations on canvas, Bourne then decided to turn the whole idea on it's head and attempt to write songs from the colour formations on the canvases. This he initially did by taking a number of his own songs as a songwriter, allocating a particular interpretation in colour to each from his 'Canvas Music' system and then reinterpretating these pieces a second time and changing them back into new sound pieces. Amazingly this worked to such an extent that the first song to be used in this manner became a top 10 hit in collaboration with another idea under the name of 'The Chuggability Theory' that Richard had devised whilst lecturing on the Music Industry at the University of West London and the London Institute of Music.

Richard had worked in 2013 on a number of his own works interpreting each song from sound to colour and then back into aural pieces. The very first 'Canvas Music' music to art back to aural pieces. Later, David Baker from the Mute Records group's Fortran 5, I Start Counting and Komputer helped in Richard's remix implementation of a David Bowie song. However, during the process of the painting of the song before its remix incarnation Bowie passed away and devastated at the loss of Bowie, Bourne halted the project with immediate effect.

In 2014 Richard approached the music artist Karel Fialka famous for his 'Hey Matthew' hit and Karel was particularly impressed with the 'Canvas Music' idea. They released the album 'Peace v War' under the name Racecar (Richard's band) featuring Karel Fialka. Two instrumental 'Canvas Music' instrumental pieces were written and produced by Richard and included as interpretations from colour formations. The album was released in 2016 and those two standout pieces were lauded in the jazz fraternity as pioneering avant garde fare.

If any other artists are interested in this new ground breaking idea of writing new songs from colour then please get in touch with EAG.

Creating Remixes of Songs from 'Canvas Music' Soundboards

Now thoroughly confident of both the idea of 'Canvas Music' as paintings as well as the reinterpretation of sound from colour to introduce new songs that could become hits Richard decided for an off the wall approach to produce remixes.

He introduced a format for painting new pieces of work using 'aural soundboards' to enable him to cross pollate areas of space on a canvas using shortened colour formations and at the same time produce bizarre avante garde remixes of the original works of music artists.

'Canvas Music' paintings have been acquired by artists such as Muse, OMD, Todd Rundgren and Lucinda Sieger as well as the Government of Gozo.

Commissioned pieces are available on this concept. Contact us at EAG.

‘Canvas Music’ copyright owned by Richard Bourne Art/Silverscope 2009-2026.

Exhibitions

2008 The Palace, Malta Solo Exhibition of 40 works

2008 Grand Hall Concert + Exhibition An Exhibition of Bourne’s work in conjunction with music by Japanese composer Hiroki Okano

2009 ‘Ace’ Film Fashion Show ExhibitionSolo Exhibition of works

2009 Le Meridien Villa Exhibition Various Works in group exhibition

2010 Hilton Hotel, Portomaso Exhibition Solo Exhibition of 30 works including unveiling of Art Biennale Award Winning Painting ‘Live Life Connections’

2011 Pledgers Restaurant, Malta Short Exhibition

2013 Ta Nikol Art Gallery, Gozo Full Exhibition of works

2014 Mill Room Gallery, Gozo Full Exhibition of Works

2015 Government Exhibition Halls, Gozo. Month long Solo Exhibition of ‘Canvas Music’ works