Local Spotlight: Shaun Richards at Designbox, March 2008

March 10, 2008

The Skeptic, Shaun Richards (sold)

Milkmaid, Shaun Richards (contact Designbox for purchase info)

Designbox is privileged to host Shaun Richards’ latest show called Click Clique, which the News and Observer named as one of this week’s Art Picks. “Click Clique is a new series of paintings and constructions that examine social dynamics, and nostalgic constructs, along with the interplay of media within American society. Richards’ work, evolving from an interest centered on the South, questions notions of beauty, artifice, and materialism, as well as the subtle contradictions that make living in the South a unique experience.”

The opening of the show was this past Friday, March 7, and was very successful. Many visitors had never seen Richards’ work, and were impressed by his old world painterly quality that somehow keeps its contemporary edge. For those familiar with Richards’ work, the show offers the opportunity to see Shaun experiment with a smaller canvas. He treated this small size differently than his better known larger works by exploring tighter croppings and simpler foreground to background relationships. This reduced field of view ultimately alters the story of each painting or theme in interesting ways.

Shaun has done a lot since returning to NC and moving to Raleigh in 2006, including but not limited to:
January 2007 - awarded the Regional Emerging Artist Residency at Artspace.
September 2007 - recognized as one of the “21 under 31″ of 2007 by Southwest Art magazine.
March 2008 - won Best in Show out of 600 entries, 61 of which were accepted, at the North Carolina Artists Exhibit (sponsored by the Raleigh fine Arts Society and juried by Larry Wheeler, Director, NCMOA). The exhibit is currently up at Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts.

Shaun is represented by Flanders Art Gallery in Raleigh and Fountainside Gallery in Wilmington. He has studio space at 311 Martin St Galleries.

The Designbox show is up until Friday, March 28. Hours are Monday-Friday 10am-5pm or by appointment.
Shaun’s site is here.

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Tags: , Art, art opening, Designbox, galleries, Shaun Richards