Twilight

My new War Paint piece Twilight is a portrait of a special person - my childhood art teacher, mentor and lifelong friend Linda Regula. Limited-edition prints of Twilight are available now: paulrichmond.bigcartel.com/pro…

"I was born in the mountains of West Virginia, second youngest of nine children. We lived in tar-papered shacks without electricity or running water, and moved often. Memories of my childhood always include nighttime trips to outdoor toilets, those first scary walks into new schools where I was bullied, newspaper pasted over cracks in the walls, trying to stay warm in winter, and night-time moves to another shack. My mother ran away when I was nine years old, and my father lived by the saying, 'spare the rod and spoil the child.' I was ill-dressed, hungry, abused, and fearful of his escalating violence. Although a world of poverty and neglect surrounded my physical body, I was also blessed because powerful imagination allowed me to create beautiful worlds that also nurtured my soul." ~Linda Regula, from The Artist's Interview

WAR PAINT Series 
“They understand only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.” –Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Body painting has significance in many cultures and serves a variety of purposes from spiritual cleansing to battle preparation. My War Paint series draws upon this rich symbolism to investigate the construction of identity. In these paintings, the modern human form becomes the canvas, a painted object of his/her own creation. Reality and abstraction compete within the figurative foundation of each piece to make the subjects’ inner struggles more tangible. The application of pigment is suggestive of their psychological states, the color of their self-made armor exposing more than it conceals. By deconstructing and rebuilding the figure, my goal is to invite understandings that reach beyond the immediate surface and reveal the complexity of the individual.