Born in Gouverneur, a small town in upstate New York, his love for the arts was apparent even before school age. Rick attributes his interest in painting and drawing to his father who was a miner to support the family by day, but also a self taught artist at night. Through the early years Rick was continually encouraged to continue with his art interests. Fresh out of high school Rick developed a skill for hand lettering signs and painting murals on trucks and billboards. This led to working full time in a sign shop while he pursued Fine Arts degree at SUNY Oswego, in upstate New York. After college he set out to see some of the country and by chance ended up in Sarasota Florida. There, he started a hand lettering business called Manasota Art Sign. Soon he was called upon to letter the circus trailers for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Venice Florida, their winter home at the time. As fate would have it, this would lead to a long career in the live entertainment industry that has spanned nearly 30 years.
Starting out as a scenic painter in the prop shop, Rick was promoted rapidly to Art Dept. Lead to Production Manager to Director and finally to Vice President of Scenic, overseeing all of scenic, props and special effects for Feld Entertainment's properties worldwide. During his tenure as VP, Rick was also called upon to create the Production Design for many of the company’s shows including; Gold Show Circus, Disney On Ice and Disney Live Stage Shows as well as Feld Motorsports shows and special events.
Those many years being immersed in this environment had a major impact on his painting and artistic vision.. His use of pure color and movement in his painting is a reflection of the many years working on over the top dramatic shows with super saturated color, lighting and costumes and world class performers.
Rick recently has scaled back from live entertainment to devote more time to his Fine Art/ Painting while still pursuing Production Design opportunities. He still resides in Sarasota Florida with his wife Lois.
Artist Statement
Over many years of being involved with live entertainment, a strong sense of motion and saturated color has permeated my way of seeing the world. I continue on in my fine art painting with the motion and colors that have inspired me for so many years. The raw emotion and surge of energy is what I try to pass on to the viewers of my art. I feel it's important to capture that fleeting moment in space and time that is so hard to capture on a two dimensional surface.
My love for oil paints and their unique ability to merge and flow has been my avenue to best portray the emotions I try to illicit. Recently I have added acrylic as a medium to help me tell my stories, whether stand alone or combined with oils. I have no rules when it comes to mediums or technique, and I will do what ever is necessary to achieve the mood and emotion I am trying to portray to the viewer.
Over the years as many artist do, I feel I have evolved and my current interests lay somewhere between representational and Impressionistic figurative works. I like the challenge and sense of life that working with the figure imparts and also find great beauty in Impressionistic style. I find great beauty in the way the paint is applied and cherish efficient but meaningful brushstrokes. So my evolutionary journey has been to combine technique with emotion and a touch of story telling. I continually strive for something to give each of my paintings more punch and combining my past experiences, has given me a way to express the vibrance that I see all around me and surfaces throughout my works.
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Rick