oxford gallery

Richard Harrington

Richard HarringtonCathedral, oil on canvas

Richard HarringtonNew Day, oil on linen

Although an accomplished painter of panoramic landscapes, Richard Harrington has found a particular artistic “niche” in the study of barns. He states that his intention in painting barns is "to turn a subject of sweet nostalgia and American pie into something contemporary and iconic, representational to an extent, but imbued with the energy and surface of expressionism." Harrington accomplishes his objective by stripping the scene to the bare geometry of the buildings and the colors to solid planes of light and shadow. The result is not a sterile abstraction, however, but a scene shrouded in mystery and charged with monumental presence. By reducing form to bare physical outlines, and by emphasizing the nature and direction of the light, Rick's painting engage us in ways similar to those of Surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico. They seem to move us out of the realm of the real and into the realm of memory and past association. Although we see the barns as we have never seen them, we sense that we have experienced the mood of the scene many times before.

A native of Oregon, Rick is an inveterate outdoorsman. He received Bachelors degrees in studio art and business at SUNY Geneseo, where he first worked under the direction of Richard Beale. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, and upstate New York audiences will remember one typical depiction, “Hot Summer Sky,” which was voted the most popular of many fine pieces in the Memorial Art Gallery's 2013 Finger Lakes exhibition.

Richard HarringtonTime is a River (Letchworth Gorge), oil on canvas

Richard HarringtonChristmas Eve, oil on canvas



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