Willy Bo Richardson (born June 8, 1974) is an American artist. Richardson is regarded as one of many contemporary painters revisiting late Modernism. Describing his paintings as “philosophy in motion,” Richardson paints vertical strokes of color. He exhibits his paintings internationally.

Early life and education

His father is a master wood-worker and artist/painter, and his mother was a counselor and founded the first mediation center in Santa Fe. He studied at UW Madison and received a BA from

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. While at UT Austin, he counted

Peter Saul Peter Saul (born August 16, 1934) is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the fa ...

and

Linda Montano Linda Mary Montano (born January 18, 1942, Saugerties (town), New York, Saugerties, New York (state), New York) is an American performance artist. Early life Montano was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic household, partly Irish and partly Itali ...

among his teachers. Living in Philadelphia in 1997, he was writing and painting. Richardson jokes, "I wrote a really bad coming of age novel, and the next year I checked myself in to graduate school for painting at

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

" in Brooklyn. He received an MFA there in 2000. He and his wife lived in New York City for a decade. He worked as a painting technician at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

from 2001-2007.

Career

Richardson taught painting at

Santa Fe University of Art and Design Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD) was a private, for-profit art school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The university was built from the non-profit College of Santa Fe (CSF), a Catholic facility founded as St. Michael's College in 1859, and ...

from 2009-2016. In 2011 his work was included in the exhibition curated by Stephanie Buhmann at Jason McCoy Gallery in New York titled, "70 Years of Abstract Painting – Excerpts". The show assembled works by a selection of modern and contemporary painters, including Josef Albers,

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

. In 2012 he showed a body of work in the exhibition "Watercolors”" at the Phillips de Pury headquarters in Chelsea New York. In 2014 Richardson was selected to be one of the

SITE Santa Fe SITE Santa Fe (often referred to simply as SITE) is a nonprofit contemporary arts organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since its founding in 1995, SITE Santa Fe has presented 11 biennials, more than 90 contemporary art exhibitions, and wor ...

SPREAD finalists. His work and vision was featured on the PBS weekly arts series ¡COLORES!. Richardson's painting titled "Number 1," 1999 was acquired by the

Albuquerque Museum of Art and History The Albuquerque Museum, formerly known as the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, is a public art and history museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The museum is located in the Old Town area and is operated by the City of Albuquerque Department of ...

in 2018. He was a guest artist at the

Tamarind Institute Tamarind Institute is a lithography workshop created in 1970 as a division of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, United States. It began as Tamarind Lithography Workshop, a California non-profit corporation founded by June Wayne on T ...

at the University of New Mexico in 2019. Richardson is represented by Richard Levy Gallery in Albuquerque.

Work

Richardson paints large scale canvases in vertical fluid strokes of bold color. Influenced by Robert Irwin’s large scrim installation in 1998 titled Prologue: x 18³ at the

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Ménil, Dominique de Menil and an h ...

on 22nd street, Richardson set out to "influence space" with paintings. Richardson states about his paintings, "I found myself not chasing current trends, but instead found meaning in looking for underlying currents of value... I found a loadstone of sorts, and it’s as simple as finding true north, or one’s own heartbeat."

References

External links

* * Wright, Margaret
Painters Point the Way at Richard Levy Gallery
Adobe Airstream, August–September 2014 Edition. * Frederick Hammersley Foundation
Willy Bo Richardson, The Impressionists, Regional Theater, Jack Ross
PBS ¡COLORES! * Patti LaSalle-Hopkins
On the Line
New Mexico Magazine, April 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, Willy Bo 1974 births Living people 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Abstract painters Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico Painters from New Mexico

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

People from New Mexico by occupation Artists from New Mexico 20th-century American male artists