Born in 1944, the son of Arthur Alexander Edwards, an Australian landscape artist, Richard Paul Edwards grew up in a world of lyrical watercolours and oil paintings.

In his first year in high school he won an art prize usually reserved for senior students and, because he was so young, he was questioned as to whether his submission really was his own work. He left school at the age of 15 to study commercial art and although he became competent in this metier, it did not suit his temperament and he left to pursue other vocations.

In 1975 Edwards painted alongside a group of artisans in an atelier in Stockholm before moving to London, where he studied art under Peter Garrard at the Mary Ward College and under Leonard Boden in his London studio.

Moving back to Sydney and the light of the southern skies, Edwards tried to return to painting landscapes but felt increasingly frustrated by the need to explore broader ideas in paint.

In Edwards' own words, "Once I get started on a piece, I become absorbed to the extent that I am not aware of the detail of what I am doing until I've finished. I love working with colour - I believe that through colour and form, emotion and feelings can be captured and expressed in all their immediacy and raw vitality".