ORIGINS

Ancien Rych began with music.

Years before the visual worlds and mythology that would follow, I was writing original piano compositions whose melodies never sounded entirely contemporary to me. Their rhythm, movement and sense of time seemed to belong somewhere much earlier — music I could imagine having existed two centuries ago.

Ancien, the French word for old or ancient, became a way of expressing that connection with another time. It also carries a more personal meaning: a spiritual sense I have long held that perhaps some part of me has been here before.

Rych comes from my own first name, Richard. It is a deliberately altered form of the name — familiar enough to retain a connection to the person behind the work, but changed sufficiently to belong to the artist.

Richard is private. Ancien is public. Ancien Rych is the artist.

The spelling also gave the name something I wanted visually. It can appear contemporary and minimal, or seem equally at home carved into stone, written into an old manuscript or carried across another age.

What began as a name for my piano compositions eventually became the signature across a much wider body of work.

Ancien Rych.

INITIA 𒊕 𒍣 ANTIQUA