Joël Richard is a French-born contemporary painter based in North Bondi, Sydney. Working primarily with oil paints, he creates expressive figurative and abstract works that explore human emotion, movement, and the connection between people and place. His practice evolved from film photography to painting in 2020 and has since developed into a distinct visual language blending figuration, abstraction, and gestural energy.

Guided by his love for Basque culture and Australia’s raw natural beauty, Joël’s work reflects a dialogue between landscape, memory, and emotion. He mixes his colours from scratch to achieve a balanced and personal palette often using greens inspired by the Basque countryside and reds reminiscent of the Australian outback.

His paintings frequently represent figures in suspended or dramatic poses, creating compositions that feel dynamic, theatrical, and open to interpretation. controlled colours, textured surfaces, and expressive mark-making define his style, merging emotional figurative scenes with an abstract sensibility.

"my paintings emerges from a questioning relationship with love."

Many of his works examine the search for new horizons and the complexities of emotional connection and attachment, reflecting influences from daily life, childhood memories, and imagined futures.

Joël has held solo exhibitions including If You Leave Can I Come at COMA, Sydney (2024) and Sense of Guilt at Room 205, Sydney (2022). He has participated in group exhibitions with Art Club at Our House (2023, 2024) and was a finalist in the Soho Art Prize (2024).

He works with oil paints, oil sticks, and oil pastels, starting each piece by building a colour palette to set the mood of the composition. He often sketches directly onto the canvas before layering oils to create depth and atmosphere. His scenes combine expressive figuration, gestural abstraction, and occasionally childlike outlines, showing the human body—sometimes nude, floating, or caught in moments of tension within softly surreal environments.