Rick Wright
Community-Based Art; Visual
BIO:
Rick Wright is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a B.F.A in Design/Illustration and an M.A. in art education. He lives in midtown Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and young daughter. He routinely exhibits work in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area and travels regionally to art festivals in Minneapolis, Denver, Dallas, St Louis, Chicago, Memphis, and Des Moines. In addition to his personal work, he has been an art educator in both private and public schools and currently teaches art at Van-Go Inc., an arts based non-profit job training program in Lawrence, KS.
STATEMENT:
Terpsichore, in Greek mythology was one the nine Muses of the arts. Her traditional domain of dance and song, along with more contemporary cirque nouveau and burlesque performers have influenced my most recent figurative explorations. Though semi-abstract and expressionistic, I value a believability, proportion, and movement in the form. Within each piece, I challenge myself with color relationships, and mark-making to build, define, redefine, and refine each painting without losing a sense of liveliness and energy. I seek a balance between the raw nature of a gestural five minute sketch and the sophistication one expects of a resolved painting. The strength and grace of these feminine forms in motion both challenge and compliment the direction of my work.
PROCESS:
My work is composed primarily of acrylic paints through an aggressive use of brushwork, mark-making, and color exploration to capture the essence of a pose. I seek to maintain a rawness and energy in the completed image, but with a believability of form. The majority of my work is rooted in direct observation of a model. Burlesque performers, dancers, and acrobats are of particular interest to my current body of work. I typically create a number of charcoal sketches and then utilize them in the studio as reference for larger paintings where my own direction and color sensibilities develop independently from the model.
