Artist's Statement:

Russell U. Richards is an artist with a studio at the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has been drawing, painting, and making sculpture since he was three years old, finally deciding to become a full-time professional fine artist in 1996 at age 26. For the better part of ten years he worked almost exclusively in printmaking, developing innovative multiple-plate color methods in etching and lithography, for which he received the Virginia Commission for the Arts grant for printmaking in 2002.

In 1999, Russell was struck with the first of two near-fatal bouts of Ulcerative Colitis, a currently incurable disease. Ironically this, and his subsequent fight to regain health, served to infuse his artwork with a new vitality and vigor.

During this time he created the signature style for which he is known: nervous, quaking lines and cartoonishly reduced forms tempered with a fine sense of composition. Imaginary landscapes, architecture, people, fantastical monsters and animals characterize his edgy and often thematically challenging images. Wildly expressive compositions belie the meticulousness of his distinctive art-making techniques.

In recent years russell has shifted his focus from traditional forms of printmaking to painting, lenticular printmaking, and bronze sculpture. His work has been exhibited in galleries and recognized in publications across the United States, and is now beginning to filter overseas to Europe and Japan, thanks in part to his inclusion in the internationally-distributed magazine Super-7, and the book The World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today.