David Rich “Conversations and Situations: Paintings and Drawings, 1976-2019”

David Rich “Conversations and Situations: Paintings and Drawings, 1976-2019”

Skoto Gallery

This event has ended.

Skoto Gallery presents ‘Conversations and Situations: Paintings and Drawings, 1976-2019’, an exhibition of selected works by the American artist David Rich. This is his first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Over the past four decades David Rich has demonstrated a remarkable ability to fuse abstraction, figuration and urban landscape in endlessly inventive ways suffused with lyrical beauty and an aura of spontaneity. His work advances creative dialogue with an abiding confidence that visual images can still communicate powerful emotional and spiritual values in addition to formal aesthetics. The concept of the subconscious is a powerful one in his work and can be very much seen in his deep affection for the natural world and intense curiosity about the human and social realities around him, creating narratives that allow the past to be continually revealed through the present. He draws no hierarchical distinctions among his work in abstraction and figuration, rather each facilitates a variety of ways to rigorously engage with its conceptual and aesthetic underpinnings, making layered meanings possible. And in the artist’s own words: “These paintings take shape over time, in both making and seeing them. This involves decisive changes made quickly, but also a slow aspect. Both require different kinds of fearlessness. This attitude is not about aesthetic refinement. Rather, it remains rooted in urgency, making the changes necessary to bring out the implicit underlying content more clearly.”

Included in this show is a selection of paintings and drawings from 1976-2019 that expertly exploit the ambiguity between abstract shapes and imagery as well as the intriguing play between formal intention and narrative potential. Luminous, spare and evocative, the works from the 1970s, his early years of self-discovery and rigorous experimentation with spatial structure and placement of color are elegant abstractions with a strong sense of linear design and vibrant colors. There is a great deal of critical experience, of knowledge and admiration of other artists’ researches in this dynamic body of work, as well as an ever sensitive deftly balanced interaction between visual and emotive concerns. His work nudges us to be more open-minded, to adjust to the constant change in the world.

David Rich was born in Chicago, and studied at Kansas City Art Institute (BFA), University of Oregon (MFA), New York Studio School Paris Session, and Skowhegan. He is a widely exhibited artist both at home and abroad. Solo exhibitions include Galerie Elizabeth, Chicago, 1979; Dolly Fiterman Gallery, Minneapolis, 1985, 1992, and 1998; Franz Bader Gallery, Washington DC, 1986; Satori Fine Art, Chicago, 1997; and University of St Catherine 2011. He is in numerous private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Weisman Museum, Minneapolis; and Minnesota Museum of American Art. He has taught at several institutions including the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 1985 -2010, and presently lives and works in the New York Hudson Valley.

Media

• Painting
• Drawing

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