When I started painting, I knew that I wanted to acknowledge my years as an illustrator in advertising and publishing. I was lucky to have worked in New York City and Los Angeles and I didn’t want to completely jettison history. I also recognized that my past role as a visual facilitator for clients ran counter to my current direction involving introspection.

Reconciliation was necessary. The kind of reconciliation that interested me was the kind that allowed the known to coexist with the unknown. The known started with the everyday and banal. The unknown was the introduction of the unexpected and the twist that by all occurrences would appear to be completely natural.

It turned out that unsolicited work has allowed an advancement of my own ideas that blur cultures, media and aesthetics. What I present here are the material objects that are comprised of elements that I have observed, photographed, archived and “jerry-rigged” to form new context. Also, the elements have been reworked several fold making its starting point deeply buried yet very open to interpretation. I refer to the phrase “to think outside of the box”. An applicable metaphor for me is the box without a lid. In other words a structure to start with but with the hope of endless opportunities to venture out to find the unexpected.

Richard lives in Altadena, CA where he continues to make paintings, photos and photopaintings. He teaches at Pasadena City College.