"... if the paint creates a strong, beautiful, intriguing abstract, then the story works. That is the challenge for me."
"... I like to take the impossible story, people lined up waiting for an ATM machine, people waiting for their luggage at a carousel, a funeral procession, a woman cleaning her house, washing her dishes, ironing her clothes… and, taking that impossible story, make it work by putting the paint on the right place on that canvas. If that part works, if the paint creates a strong beautiful intriguing abstract, then the story works. That is the challenge for me.
Painting is about design and surface tension and emotional impact. It is about balancing spontaneity with skillful integrity, complexity with clarity. It is a constant dance, balancing illusion with the reality to be created.”
Lesley Rich, '06
Lesley Rich was born in 1944 in Chicago. Her path did not immediately lead her to art, as her family told her it was impractical and not a serious way to make a living. Painting was destined to find her, however, and fourteen years ago a friend gave her his old painting supplies and told her to take a class. What happened next is history. Rich became a dedicated painter in a matter of years. She still remembers purchasing her own first brushes, and the hours she spent at the Palette and Chisel club in Chicago during the learning process. Rich painted at the Palette and Chisel between 16-17 hours a day for three years, honing and developing her drawing and painting skills.
Rich continues to study under Jove Wang, and she speaks to a great admiration for the Chinese painters, and their life long acquisition of skill sets. She considers her painting to be continual learning process as well. This attitude of openness and determination is what allows Rich to effectively work towards capturing an honest sense of place and time.
Lesley Rich strives towards the idea of the 'moment', and retaining a sense of the living in her works. Rich travels greatly, and returns to Italy for teaching and painting every year. She allows herself to be struck by small scenes which somehow resonate for her and the viewer. She sketches scenes multiple times, in order to try and retain a sense of the movement and emotion that was initially so striking. Rich will depict landscape, laundry or a scene between people as part of her study of the various human emotions, and the human imprint as it plays through the world. Her passion is finding the abstract designs in the ordinary, and showing the delicate harmony of the small moments in life.
Rich's work is a close up study of events which speak to larger themes such as love, friendship and home. Her paintings are articulations of the vibrancy of the present. Rich's vision is that of the artist who wishes to paint the beautiful instances for those who might have been too busy, or somehow overlooked them. Rich calls her paintings 'intimate landscapes', and we are struck by her potent, yet subtle, rendering. Rich uses her skills to bring out the essential qualities of the paint, rhythm and color as they occur in the world around us.
