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Statement
The Places in Between
My paintings and drawings of the past decade have explored through the language of abstraction the notion of place. Places once visited, invented or discovered, vaguely take shape in the colors of space and light.
The gray skies of Providence, the expanses of sky and sea surrounding Nantucket Island, the warm of a New England Fall, are subjects now mined in my work. In an effort to understand my own place among these fleeting images, I seek a language that draws on personal history as well as the history of painting while forging a new path between abstraction and the realization of the image of place.
A sabbatical from teaching in 2007, allowed me a return to Italy where early experiences in landscape painting had helped to shape the direction of my work today. Spending time in the coastal landscape of the Maremma and among the ruins of the Etruscans had me reflecting again on the sea where, the earliest of civilizations took to their boats and scattered like seeds across the Mediterranean. While the sea itself erases the paths taken, the artifacts, paintings and architecture continue to tell the story. Images from the Etruscan tombs of Tarquinia of small boats and birds serve as inspiration as I recall my own life around the ocean.
While light, weather and atmosphere act as the impetus in my work, it is my aim to probe the depths of an inner space through meditations in light and color. I am searching through the language of contemporary abstraction, a deeper connection, understanding of place and consciousness of the present moment. The painting themselves lie in the places between memory and new moments of discovery.
Michael Rich, September 2009
Solo Museum Exhibitions
2008 To The Sea • Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
2007 Nantucket Walkabouts • Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR
Solo Gallery Exhibitions
2010 The Sea and Tulips • Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2010 Intimate Landscapes • Patricia Carega Gallery, Center Sandwich, NH
2010 Sea, Sky and Land: Abstractions of Nantucket • ARC Fine Art, Fairfield, CT
2009 Taking Refuge • Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2008 Like Seeds Upon the Sea • Old Spouter Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2008 New Paintings • George Billis Gallery, New York, NY
2007 New Paintings • Adler & Co. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2007 New Paintings • Old Spouter Gallery,
2007 New Paintings • George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2006 A Season by the Sea • Old Spouter Gallery
2006 Works on Paper • Patricia Carega Gallery, Center Sandwich, NH
2006 New Paintings • George Billis Gallery, NY
2005 Sea, Sky and Stone • Old Spouter Gallery
2004 Meditations • Old Spouter Gallery
2003 Works on Paper • Patricia Carega Gallery
2003 New Landscapes • 12 Orange Fine Art, Nantucket MA
2002 New Paintings • South Wharf Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2001 New Works • South Wharf Gallery
2001 Works on Paper • East East Gallery, Nantucket, MA
2000 Cool Waters • South Wharf Gallery
1999 New Works • South Wharf Gallery
1998 Summer Jazz • South Wharf Gallery
1998 New Jazz, Old Funk • Gallerie Lumière, Savannah, GA
1997 Compositions • South Wharf Gallery
1997 Elements of Place • Gallerie Lumière
1996 My Places • South Wharf Gallery
1995 The X Gallery, Nantucket, MA
1995 The Artists Association of Nantucket, Nantucket, MA
1992 Sun Gallery, Nantucket, MA
1992 The Artists Association of Nantucket
1991 Sun Gallery
Public Collections
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA
Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH
Awards and Honors
1996 The Basil H. Alkazzi Award (USA)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2010 Adler & Co. at the LA Art Show
2009 Obsessions • Adler & Co., San Francisco
2009 Imaginary Journeys • Trevisan International Art, Estense Castle, Ferrara, Italy
2009 Adler & Co. at the LA Art Show
2008 Itinerant Artists • Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery, Center Sandwich, NH
2005 Virginia Lynch Gallery, Tiverton, RI
2004 Caelum Gallery, New York, NY • Michael Rich, Ines Theodoli, New Paintings
2004 Virginia Lynch Gallery, Tiverton, RI • New Works by Four Painters
2003 Caelum Gallery, New York, NY • Michael Rich Yasuhide Kagii, New Paintings
2002 Roger Williams University Art Gallery • Art Faculty Exhibition
2001 Virginia Lynch Gallery, Tiverton, RI • First of the Season
2001 Roger Williams University Art Gallery • New Faculty Exhibition
2000 Sotheby's, Chicago, USA, Tel Aviv, Israel, Vienna, Austria •Artlink International Young Art 2000
1999 Gallerie Lumière, Savannah, GA •Michael Rich •Suzanne Jackson
1998 Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, GA • Faculty Show
1998 The Broome Street Gallery, New York, NY •Selections, from the Savannah College of Art & Design
1997 Sylvia Schmidt Gallery, New Orleans LA • The Abstract Show
1997 Main Street Gallery, Nantucket, MA • An Exhibition of Drawings
1997 Sarah Bain Gallery, Fullerton, CA • Jewels of the South
1996 Sylvia Schmidt Gallery • The Landscape Show Art Fair
1996 Savannah College of Art & Design • MFA Painting Exhibition
Artists Association of Nantucket, Nantucket, MA
1993 Julie Gifford Fine Arts; Perrysburg, OH • Nantucket Exports
1993 Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY • Visiting Exhibition
1990 Sun Gallery, Nantucket, MA
Selected Bibliography
Norris, Doug, Michael Rich, To The Sea - Newport Art Museum (review) Art New England August/ September 2008
Kuspit, Donald, Abstraction and Nature in the Paintings of Michael Rich, (Exhibition Catalog Essay), 2005, Publication sponsored by Basil Alkazzi
Neville, Beth, New Work by Four Painters (review), Virginia Lynch Gallery Art New England, December 2004/ January 2005
Sherry, Reema, Creative Juices: Michael Rich, Painter N Magazine, August 2004 Craven, Robert; Michael Rich: Work on Paper (review) Art New England, December 2003/ January 2004
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