Richard McVetis
- Tutor (Research)
- Textiles MA
Richard is a visual artist whose practice-led research delves into time, geology and cosmology. He crafts intricate, shifting forms and installations through textile-based works.
Richard studied at Manchester School of Art before completing a Textiles MA at the Royal College of Art in 2008. With over a decade of experience in retail design and strategy, he joined the RCA as a visiting lecturer in 2017 and became a tutor in 2022.
Richard has also taught, lectured and led workshops at institutions in the UK and internationally.
Gallery
More information
Practice
Richard’s research is practice-led and ongoing, driven by a deep fascination with the language of time, geology and cosmology. He explores these themes primarily through textile-based work, particularly hand stitching. Through his making, he delves into repetition and the nuanced expressions of sameness and difference within it. These works map space and visually represent the passage of time, challenging traditional definitions of embroidery. Recent projects explore our connection to material, place, and deep time, with a special focus on his family's mining heritage – a lineage rooted in materiality and labour.
Awards
Resident Artist, Make Hauser & Wirth, 2024
Finalist, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, 2023
Finalist, Evelyn Williams Drawing Award, 2023
Winner, Cockpit Textile Prize, 2023
Finalist, Loewe Craft Prize, 2018
Finalist, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2016
Finalist, Cheongju International Craft Competition, 2015
Finalist, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2011
Current and recent projects
Richard’s current research, titled Timescapes, investigates how we attempt to measure and contain time by mapping it within space. The title draws from Barbara Adam's Timescapes of Modernity, where she introduces "timescapes" as temporal landscapes – industrial, natural, political, and social – that shape modern life much like physical cityscapes. These “timescapes” represent various durations, each contributing to our understanding of modernity.
Richard’s exploration is deeply personal, rooted in his family's coal mining heritage as descendants of Lithuanian immigrants. He examines "deep time" and our intrinsic connections to landscape, material, and place through coal – a substance formed over 300 million years ago that continues to impact our lives today. Richard maps the vast industrial landscapes that fuel modernity’s city lights and reveals the time scales etched into the night sky, exposing the hidden topographies of our relationship with the environment. Through making, Richard examines the power and potential of materials to reveal and understand our intrinsic relationship to nature and our place in it.
Publications, exhibitions and other outcomes
Solo exhibitions
(2022) Shaped by Time. Crafts Study Centre. Farnham. UK
Selected group exhibitions
(2024) Objects of Contemplation. Make Hauser & With. London.
(2024) On Tenderness & Time, David Katz Gallery. London.
(2024)Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. Bournemouth, Plymouth, and Wigan.UK.
(2023) Threads: ‘Breathing Stories in Materials’. Arnolfini. Bristol. UK
(2023) House Guests. David Parr House. Cambridge. UK
(2023) Into the Night. Cavaliero Finn Gallery. London Art Fair.
(2022) Sixty Drawings + Ten. The Whitaker. Manchester. UK.
(2021) Definitions of Drawing. Sunny Bank Mills. Leeds. UK
(2021) Connected Cloth. The British Textile Biennial. The Whitaker. UK
(2021) Monochrome. Ruthin Craft Centre. Wales. UK.
(2020) Of Time and Place. Living Object. London.
(2019) RE-NEW. Kettles Yard. Cambridge. UK.
(2019) David Gates: In Dialogue - Make Hauser & Wirth. Somerset. UK.
(2019) Crafting New Perspectives. Culturesphere. Gmund Büttenpapierfabrik. Germany.
(2018) Loewe Craft Prize. The Design Museum. London.
(2017) Craft Forms. Wayne Art Centre. USA.
(2017) Make_Shift - Collyer Bristow Gallery - London, UK.
(2017) Form + Motion. UK Pavilion - British Council & Crafts Council. Cheongju International Craft Biennale. South Korea.
(2017) Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival - Crafts Council - Picture House Central - London, UK.
(2017) Collect Open. Saatchi Gallery. London. UK.
(2016) Jerwood Drawing Prize. Jerwood Space. London.
Talks and interviews
(2023) Textile + Place Conference - Talk and panel discussion. Manchester Metropolitan University. UK.
(2023) Unravelling Threads. Panel discussion with curators Gemma Brace & Alice Kettle. Arnolfini. Bristol.
(2023) Sew Inclusive: Male & Non Binary Artists in Conversation. Woven Textile Festival. Huddersfield. UK.
(2023) Radical Acts Symposium. Panel discussion with Natalie Melton. Harewood House. Leeds. UK.
(2022) Material Lives. Artefact. Panel discussion with Grant Gibson. London.
(2022) Material Matters. Podcast with Grant Gibson.
(2021) Definitions of Drawing. Panel discussion with curator Courtney Spencer. Leeds. UK.
(2021) Pursuit of Beauty. Presented by Amber Butchart. BBC Radio 4.
(2021) The Potential of Stitch. The Textile Society.
(2021) The Skill of Narrative & Stitched Textiles. Fashion & Textiles Museum. London.