Marion Glass: Senior Portfolio: Lecture: Richard Roth

I attended the Richard Roth lecture at Reynolds Gallery last night. Quite honestly, I was not interested in the paintings. However, I found his lecture to be interesting, and even amusing at times. Rather than having a grand and pretentious concept behind his work, he merely said that he found them intriguing, and enjoyed the process of making them. He seemed genuinely happy with his work, and eager to get back to his studio to begin creating again.

Formerly an installation artist, Roth is now working in a new way. He has begun creating paintings on birch blocks, roughly shoebox size. Each block is painted on the front, top, bottom, and sides. They are all completely symmetrical, and primarily consist of black, white, and one other color. Due to their size and the fact that they are painted all the way around, they become almost sculptural and at times create optical illusions.

The biography from Roth's website reads: "Richard Roth is an artist and designer whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 1991 he was the recipient of a Visual Artists Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts. He received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and a BFA from The Cooper Union. His work has been exhibited at Rocket Gallery, London; Penine Hart Gallery, Bess Cutler Gallery, Trans Hudson Gallery, New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Reynolds Gallery, Richmond; Shillam + Smith, London; UCR/California Museum of Photography; the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan; Feigen, Inc., Chicago; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is the co-editor of the book, Beauty is Nowhere: Ethical Issues in Art and Design and co-author of Color Basics. He was the Director of Solvent Space in Richmond, Virginia, 2005 – 2009. He is currently a faculty member in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University."

For more of Roth's work and other information, please see his website.