Growing up in Virginia, GL Richardson did not think he would become a Western artist. Instead, he got his degree in advertising and relocated to San Francisco for what he thought was a dream job. “I only lasted a year,” he says. “I quit and moved to New Mexico and worked on a cattle ranch and worked on painting.”
David, oil on wood panel, 24 x 36"
After a year, he knew he had to make a decision: go back to advertising, or stay in New Mexico and pursue what was then a fledgling career as a painter. In the end, he chose his art, and this July, his work will be on view at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe in a solo exhibition titled Twin Window: A Guadalupe Street Feature.
“I was thinking a lot about the reciprocal nature of windows. Now that I’m painting full time, I’ve realized that studio work is a very insular practice, and I’m painting this ranching cowboy lifestyle that I’m no longer really a part of,” Richardson says. “I feel like I’m looking out of the window into a past life to create these paintings.”
The Neighbor’s Bull, oil on wood panel, 24 x 18"
He strives to create paintings that people can connect to on a broader scale. “If it’s not something that’s getting to a greater human truth, there’s no point really,” he says. “I’m always looking for ideas that don’t only strike a chord with me, but that I think will reach a bigger audience.”
Once Richardson has settled on the subject matter, he spends time creating sketches and composites. “After that, it’s off to the races,” he says. He paints quickly, often finishing a painting within a week or two.
Thoughts on Drought, oil on paper, 20 x 16"
He recently completed a piece titled David, which features a farrier sitting in front of a horse. “When you deal with huge animals like that, it can be really intimidating, but David has this way of soothing the animals,” Richardson says. “So the painting is named after him, but it’s also a reference to David and Goliath and the size and power dynamic there.”
One of the things that struck Richardson after moving to the West and working on a ranch was just how valuable water is, which inspired his painting Thoughts on Drought.“Where I grew up in Virginia, people complained when there was a big storm, but here it’s different,” he says. “Water is so amazingly important, especially when you have 900 animals that need water or they’ll die.” In the painting, a man and his horse are trudging toward the viewer, towing the line between extinction and survival in a desert landscape.
Photo of GL Richardson in the Studio. Shot on Polaroid by Leah Garcia.
“GL Richardson illuminates the raw and simple beauty found from his personal experiences working the land and ranching, visually articulating the mundane with poeticism,” says Denise Phetteplace, executive director of Blue Rain Gallery. “Combining a distillation of form with rich and complex color fields, Richardson’s paintings inspire contemplation.”
Twin Window opens on July 14 with an artist’s reception from 5 to 7 p.m. and remains on view through July 29. —
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