About

“The more you look the more you realise how incredibly complex his work is.  Nothing is left to chance; there is an impressive meticulous mind behind the work not dissimilar to an archaeologist painstakingly brushing away the dust before removing just tiny fragments of clay from the soil.”

Marie Holland, Curator (Art) Thameside Museums and Galleries Service

ABOUT

 My recent work is a continuing development of my interest in the evolution of the landscape due to natural and man-made influences. I am fascinated by surface weathering, erosion and obsolete industrial structures and detritus, but also in what may lie beneath the surface, left by our ancestors.  The layering of ages, distilled in the imagination, makes up much of the imagery in my work.  The techniques that I use, burning, scratching, wearing down and building up surfaces, are an echo of this.

I develop the idea in sketchbook form or through thought processes. On stretched watercolour paper, I map out the composition in pencil or watercolour, or use a juxtaposition of shapes cut from photographs, images of previous paintings, textured materials or found objects. I build up the work in layers using watercolour, gum Arabic and process white. As the painting takes form, I can sand down, wash away, burn, scratch or stick, thus creating new layers. This can happen many times before the final image emerges and so the timescale on a piece of work is variable

BIO

Ulrich was born in Brussels in 1937 and educated in Sussex, India, London and Scotland. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he studied Graphic Design at the Liverpool College of Art in the late Fifties. In 1972, he qualified as a teacher of special needs adults at the Bolton Institute of Technology.

Ulrich continued to teach for eight years, after which he resigned his post as Deputy Manager of an Adult Training Centre to become a freelance artist and to bring up his daughter Emily.

He has exhibited widely in the North West and has work in private collections in London, Wales, France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and U.S.A. He is a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, the Sefton Guild of Artists and the Society of Graphic Fine Art.

Ulrich now works from his studio in Ashton-in-Makerfield.