James Rieck
Sumptuous, iconic and glowing in a Mid-Century style nodding at glamour and social commentary.
From James Rieck:
For years, I have been painting using references from department store catalogs, ads, year-end corporate reports and the internet to navigate the images bombarding us in our cultural landscape. These already closely-cropped pictures focus in on the subject or product for sale, but by further emphasizing the cropping or collaging together more elaborate compositions, I amplify the body language and its psychological meaning.
Often the subject in my paintings are the model’s clothes. Clothes hide our nakedness, but they also reflect our unconscious feelings. Clothes are much like the paint on my canvases; they reflect or hide the invisible parts. The visible parts—the painted things, body language, and accessories— become the primary focus, but the unseen parts of the paintings, or the parts not painted and cropped out of the picture frame, become just as important as what is included.
James Rieck is an artist based in Joshua Tree, CA, and has taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC.
He earned both his MFA and his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Glasgow School of Art. For more than 10 years, James was a commercial muralist in San Francisco, CA. In 2006, he received the prestigious Trawick Prize.