“How would I paint that?” The question is always on the mind of Mount Pleasant, Utah, artist Ron R. Richmond (BFA ’87, MFA ’92), who admits, “I can’t look or talk to a person without studying their face, measuring their eyes, and seeing what’s interesting, what’s not symmetrical.” The passion took root at age 5, when the Denver native discovered his ability to draw and create.
Richmond says part of his aesthetic—bringing together past, present, and future—came from seeing a decaying fresco in a monastery in Italy. “It was chipping, and the plaster was falling apart,” he recalls. “Right in front of it was a table with a vase of freshly cut flowers. The juxtaposition of vibrant flowers and decaying image was so metaphorically rich.”
Richmond says his paintings, which have been exhibited in galleries from San Francisco to New York to London, usually start with a certain idea, but other ideas inevitably creep in and shape the result—sometimes in ways that surprise him. “Painting is transformational for me,” he says, “a way to explore questions and think about the meaning of life, eternity, and creation, . . . a way of working out how this all makes sense.”
See more of Richmond’s work at ronrichmond.com.
