Backstory
My given name is Richie and somewhere along the way I branded myself as Mick. If you want to call me Richie I won’t mind. I was born in Syosset, NY, raised in a military family, and lived all over the place. I studied fine art at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and currently in Austin, TX, where I’m raising my family, make art, and collaborate with my talented wife, Suzanna. She’s amazing, check her out!
Statement
These series explores the familiar and mundane through a perception of time and space, history and aspirations. Travel for me, especially in an automobile, is about as common an experience as you can get. It is tedious for most, but I find myself captured by the metaphor of having left a place and headed to another, all the while the present blurs by in my peripheral vision. The simple metaphor of our lives and the fleetingness of now. On long trips, especially when occurring in deserts and plains, compositions of light and landscape create a drishti - a point of focus that allows for a transcendent experience and ultra-awareness of place and time, helping me to contemplate realities of time. The past, present, and future converge, and the illusion recedes to reveal a sliver that exists between the past and future - the now.
For me, the artmaking process is similar to this experience. I'm aiming to find that sliver between idea and execution and remain there: I am not just seeking to achieve an end product, but to find the raw, creative sense of wonder within the act of making.
My hope is for the viewer to find perspective, contemplation, and consolation in the mundane business of day-to-day life and to consider the moment in time in which one exists in relation to their past and future. I have a coinciding series of paintings that focus upon the peripheral passing moments rather than driver perspective of past and future. In most of these paintings, I use oil on acrylic or latex, or just acrylic. I enjoy painting on found objects as well as stretching my own canvas.