Richard Tetrault

My paintings, prints and murals explore life within the contemporary urban landscape.  I have been influenced by my involvement in the community, and in the desire to reveal its numerous sides. The shifting dynamics of the street is a collage of images and encounters that are both edgy and full of primal vitality. I am interested in the qualities and dynamics of the modern, ever-changing street-scape. Both figuration and abstraction recur in numerous series, and I move between the mediums of woodcut, monoprint, mixed media painting and acrylics. Each infuses the other with possibilities, providing springboards for new directions. My studio work has been exhibited and collected locally, nationally and internationally.

My public murals are often collaborations exploring, on a large scale, community and personal identity. I have been influenced both by the muralists of Mexico's past, as well as by contemporary community-based muralism in the United States and elsewhere. The possibilities of collaboration make manifest community expressions of shared struggle for dignity, identity, and sense of place. My murals include Through the Eye of the Raven, Walls of Change, and Community Walls/Community Voices. I have presented numerous workshops as an Artist in Residence and instructor with public schools, colleges and universities, and I received the City of Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award for Community Public Art in 2008, and in 2013, The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal. 

I live and work in Strathcona, East Vancouver.