Painter and draftsman best known for provocative political works. He's exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Tweed Museum in Duluth, MN; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN; and at El Museo del Barrio, Wright Gallery and L’Acajou in New York City. Over 30 years teaching nationally and abroad, including the Minnesota Museum of American Art School and the New York Academy of Art. Most recently he was featured artist in "Focus on the Figure" at Hopper House in Nyack NY and his solo, "The Color Flesh", was presented at The Arts Center in St. Petersburg FL.
He has held residencies at El Museo del Barrio and at the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo in Santander, Spain. For twelve years taught Drawing, Color Theory and Pastels at the Parsons School of Design. He is currently Director of L’Atelier in NYC, which he founded in 1983, conducts Master Workshops in Figure Painting and Drawing and is webmaster to www.Atelier-RC.com. He has been featured on Naked New York and The New York Press.
An accomplished draftsman since early childhood, he was apprenticed to artist Fran Cervoni at the age of twelve. In New York he studied drawing under Gary Faigin and painting under Francis Cunningham at the Art Students League, anatomy at the New York Academy of Figurative Art, and perspective and design at the Parsons School of Design.
Recent work is about form, color and surface detail. Technically Dutch panel painting, it is firmly rooted in European painting tradition with an eye to modern sensibilities in color and composition.
Fragmented figures or objects are rendered against flat, bold, striking backgrounds and often paired to create startling overall abstract forms.
The lighting is Caravaggio; the high-keyed tropical palette, Gauguin. Dramatic cropping makes for a unique tension between negative shape and image.
Suggestive or narrative titles have been eliminated in favor of a simple nomenclature used for identification purposes only. The frames have been designed and hand crafted by the artist for emphasis. The gesture remains spontaneous, the color brilliant. Luminous, compressed, stark, unencumbered, unadorned, the image speaks for itself. |
