I'm happy and pleased to say
come
at 5:00 to 7:00 on April 26th.
to
Evoke Gallery
and see the show...
I’ve got the good fortune to be part of
this really great exhibition
550 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Through May 25, 2019
Downed By Her
24x18
charcoal collage
I’ve drawn from models forever. I like the quick sketches. I draw on top of drawings. I like to erase. I like all the energy. I also like the single line…the quality of line, the elegance. So recently, I started culling out 50 pads of life drawings, thinking I’ll throw away the bad and put the rest back into eternal storage. While doing this, I see all these drawings, some with good bones, each on their own page and for the most part with no story. Complete them. Give them the story. Whatever that means. So I start cutting them out. I isolate the figure from all the clutter. I collage them. I move them around. I create dialogue. It’s been an exciting couple of weeks.
Statement Originally found on Vasari 21
Bob Richardson, Untitled (2018), collage and drawing, 24 by 18 inches
One person exhibitoion of paintings and drawings by Bob Richardson
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Woman on couch 2017, oil on canvas, 44 x 68 in. | Photo by Tasha Ostrander©2017
The other day my agents come over… to take some pictures. I’ve been working on a painting; it’s on my easel. She, my agent, says…”that’s interesting” and that’s as comforting as a poke in the eye. To my defense… and it’s a good defense… I’m not done with it, but all it needs is just…. Well two more weeks of a lot of work and it’s almost done and all it needs is just …. again and again.
It’s daunting… not that I would trade my brushes in for anything else but how do you know the next move. I stand back and doubt everything… what now?
What’s curious is the painting … I just found this out though I probably knew this before and maybe writing gives it more permanence… the painting comes to my rescue. It offers me a dialogue.
It tells me... you need work here and now over here. And if I don’t get in the way… preserving precious errors…. it does find it’s way and if I follow the clues I can finish. Really though, I have no idea if this awesome insight will work tomorrow. I don’t know if writing will really give it more permanence. Some days seem easier then others. With art you’re on your own. Do what you can.
My agents told me I needed to start blogging. ..so this is the start.
They said write about why I paint. I started thinking about it and I thought more importantly ….why didn’t I paint .
I could say I had a young family, needed a job, pay the bills etc. etc. all of which carries some truth. But… being more introspective… art and artists scare me and I guess if I’m an artist now I scare myself.
Art is not level and plumb… I spent a lot of years in construction. Art is whatever you want it to be… though between me and myself I argue that position all the time. Yet, the bottom line …. art is freedom of expression and that’s damn frightening to some of us.
I like making and building things. I like the crafts. Am I a painter or an artist? Is there a distinction? In my small mind, I think so. Artist sounds so unbounded. Painter comes with inherent dimensions; so does the sound of writers or sculptors. Until I get a new suit of clothes I’m more comfortable to be known as a painter.
