ARTIST NETWORK
RICHARD COLMAN
2009-2010 Monument Snowboards 777
Location: San Francisco, CA
Profile
Richard Colman was born in 1976 and raised in leafy Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. His childhood home looks a little bit like the terracotta brick houses in his more elaborate paintings, but the similarity is just a structural one; presumably, there wasn’t nearly as much sodomy and decapitation in his real home. Bethesda was a well-heeled place full of powerful people, but Richard spent much of his teenage years venturing into D.C.—both the ritzy and gritty parts—exploring, painting walls, and going to hardcore shows. Richard loved the presentable part of the city: the free museums, the monuments, and the energy of the locus of political power. But just as much, he became fascinated with the other D.C., a place that had nothing to do with government and would never draw tourists. Just as his paintings of houses look a little like his own, there was plenty to D.C. that lay under the surface. While attending Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Colman never imagined creating his work for galleries until he was actually doing it. Colman has the ability to startle and calm his viewers in his often contradictory work that mixes sadistic pornographic imagery with softer colors, textures, and patterns to creat whimsical narritives. His pieces are also reminiscent of Byzantine painting telling stories of his life to the masses with a little added blood and rainbows.
