Frances Richardson (b. 1965, Leeds, UK) studied BA (Hons) Fine Art at Norwich School of Art and Design, Norwich. Following this course, Richardson received a Commonwealth Foundation Fellowship and trained as a Yoruba carver under Master Carver Segun Faleye in Nigeria. On return to London she met Robert Loder the art collector, philanthropist, and co-founder of the Triangle Network, and in 1994 Richardson initiated his founding of Gasworks in Vauxhall, London, for the purpose of providing artists studios and for hosting international artists in residence. In 2006 she received her MA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London.
Key solo exhibitions include: If I measure it must exist, Karsten Schubert London 2021, Not even nothing can be free from ghosts, Standpoint Gallery, London 2018, In times of brutal instability, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, London Art Fair 2018, Performed object: Fig.090616, Concrete Canvas, Treforest Industrial Estate, Cardiff 2016, Loss of object and bondage to it Fig.2, Bermondsey Square Sculpture Commission, Vitrine Gallery, London 2015 and Ideas in the Making: drawing structure, Trinity Contemporary, London 2011.
In 2021 Richardson received the prestigious Bryan Robertson Trust Award. Other recent awards include the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award and Chiara Williams Contemporary Art SOLO AWARD (both 2017). She was nominated for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2015-17 in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery.
In 2022 Frances Richardson gave the Courtauld Institute of Art Sculptural Processes Group’s Annual Artist’s Talk.