Rich has been working with oil paint and wax since the early 1980’s. His story is abstract, improvised and sometimes random. It tries to emulate his thought process, and there are no rules except to reject the obvious, and embrace uncertainty.

The work is dense with personal symbology and reflects what is going on in his head. Sifting through layers, carefully adjusting the opacity and transparency of each layer. A quest into the cosmic unconscious.

His earliest influence was his artist father, Harry Rich. Followed by the New York School abstract expressionists, the post NYS neo abstract painters of the sixties, seventies and eighties, the faculty at SVA including: Juan Gonzalez, Susan Crile, Don Eddy, Burt Hasen, Michael Loew, Michael Goldberg, Joel Pearlman, George Ortman, Hannah Wilke, Cora Kennedy and John Button.
​
The work is quieter now, speaking carefully about triumph and loss. Maybe defined by conflict, it is optimistic. Light coexists with dark, and color, the language of emotion, is provoked to struggle. Against black it leaps forward, and that simple color theory is central to a lot of this. 

To make an appointment please e-mail forspencer@yahoo.com