Richard Bolingbroke creating Diary of Loss and Grief
photo illustration: Jok Church
[ Artist's Resumé ]



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STATEMENT
RITUALS AND MEDITATIONS

These paintings are visual keys that unfold mysteries. The language that I use expresses meaning that is often hidden, and through the window of the imagination, using processes that allow me to connect with my inner reality, I explore some of the paradoxical and magical aspects of life.

My studio has become a blending of a temple and a laboratory: a temple because it is a meditative space with a strong spiritual and devotional energy, and a laboratory because it is a place where I test out ideas and experiment with creating the images that you see here.

I used to know how a painting would look when it was finished and the act of painting simply put it on the paper. Now, the creative act starts with an object, a thought, an image, an idea and as the work develops, new and vital aspects are revealed.  The finished work is an expression of discovery and revelation that constantly surprises me

Using objects that have personal meaning for me, such as stones collected from beaches around the world, leaves found while out walking, colored glass bowls, thorns from the Honey Locust tree, and most recently, skulls and bones, I create a composition that is potent and charged.

This process has become ritualistic for me, in that I imbue it with the power to delve into the unconscious. The key is that by honoring the intrinsic energy and symbolism in these objects, they work their own magic to create connections of mystery and insight. When this happens, when I get out of the way, then I enter a realm that displays and understands real beauty. This is why this series is called Rituals and Meditations.

I now see that real beauty is a striking and disturbing balance of opposites. It is disturbing because it destroys our attachment to surface values, and exposes the unsettling inner core of honesty that is the world. Beauty has to be both  yin and yang, both light and dark,  both life and death, both  stability and motion, both emptiness and fullness, both black and white for there to be a real and honest expression of beauty. Honesty acknowledges that death is as beautiful as life, and we react with fear to one side of the coin because it represents the unknown and often the unknowable, but life will always remain unbalanced unless we embrace these mysteries and hold them close to our hearts.

These paintings are an effort to open myself to this vision of a universe both seen and unseen.  Take time to look deep into these paintings and you will discover your own keys, your own insights, your own magic.

 



BIOGRAPHY

Richard Bolingbroke was born in Southsea, England in 1952, and grew up in the south of England. He took a pre-diploma art course at Winchester Art College in 1969 and then went on to study Geography at London University in 1970. He graduated with a B.Sc. in Geography in 1973, having all the while continued to paint in an unused laboratory on campus.

He traveled to India in 1976, and lived there for five years on a life-defining spiritual journey. He returning to Europe in 1981 living briefly in Amsterdam, and then moved to the United States on Thanksgiving Day 1981. After a cold winter on the East coast he moved west, spending four years in Oregon, lived briefly in Phoenix, and moved to his current home in San Francisco, California, in 1986.

As an artist his work has embraced many phases and styles. At art school, sculpture and photography were his main areas of work, but later explorations led to a greater interest in painting, especially conceptual and philosophical questions about time, creativity and the nature of reality. He also discovered a lifelong obsession with color as primary force in painting.

While traveling, he taught himself watercolor due to its ease of use on the road, painting landscapes as he worked his way across Asia to India. He began working in still-life when he arrived in San Francisco and it has remained his principle genre since then although he recently returned to the theme of landscape with a series of images of trees in the California landscape in chalk pastels and oils.

While watercolor is still his primary medium, his recent purchase of a printing press has allowed him to continue his work with monoprints. Recent investigations of pattern and color have resulted in complex watercolor images using Japanese kimonos and various personal objects from his studio.

His shows in Washington D.C in 1998 and New York City in 1999 were well received, and he has showed his work on a regular basis in Florida since 1997, receiving several awards for the excellence of his work. In 2002 he had a career retrospective at the Atrium Gallery in San Francisco.  Currently a selection of work from the series of watercolors called Rituals and Meditations is touring museums in the U.S.

 

RESUMÉ

BORN

1952 Southsea, England. Moved to USA in 1981, to California in 1986


SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2006 Visual Aid Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 Murray State University Gallery, Murray, Kentucky
2006 Visual Arts Center, Panama City, Florida
2006 Parkersburg Art Center, Parkersburg, W. Virginia
2005 Waterworks Visual Arts Center, Salisbury, N.C.
2005 Oliver Elliot and Sebastian, Carmel, California.
2005 Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University, England
2005 Mowen Solinski Gallery, Nevada City, California
2004 Clark Contemporary, San Francisco, California
2003 Transamerica Center, 505 Sansome St, San Francisco, California
2002 A 12 Year Retrospective The Atrium Gallery, San Francisco, California
2002 33 New Montgomery, San Francisco, California
2000 Bechtel Corporation World Headquarters, San Francisco, California
1999 Bechtel Corporation World Headquarters, San Francisco, California
1999 Prince Street Gallery, New York
1998 Rivaga Gallery, Washington D.C.
1995 Gallery 30, Burlingame, California
1994 The Helen Crocker Russell Library, Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco
1994 RJS Galleries, Key West, Florida
1993 Art in Public Spaces Program, Stanford University, California
1993 RJS Galleries , Richmond, Virginia
1993 Diva Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida
1992 Mill Valley Art Commission, Mill Valley, California


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2005 Watercolor USA, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri, Juror: Daniel Piersol
2005 Proof Positive, Visual Aid Exhbition, LGBT Community Center, San Francisco, California.
2005 Iconography and Trans-formation Space 743/Visual Aid, San Francisco, California
2004 Watercolor USA, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri, Juror: Joseph Jacobs
2003 Summer Show Anne Bradford Gallery , Healdsburg, California
2003 Visual Aid Group Show, Catherine Clarke Gallery, San Francisco, California
2002 Visual Aid Group Show, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, California
2002 Positive Too The LGBT Center, San Francisco, California
2000 Things:-Still Lifes and Objects Digital Annex, San Francisco, Curator J. Davis
1999 Water-Color, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, California, Jurors Mark Adams/Beth Van Housen
1998 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa, Florida, Honorable Mention Prize
1998 Nature 1 Post St, McKesson Headquarters,Curator: J. Davis, San Francisco, California
1997 Michael Thompson Gallery, San Francisco ,California
1997 Coconut Grove Art Festival, Coconut Grove Florida, first prize watercolor.
1996 Artworks Men at Work, San Francisco, California
1996 Sun Gallery 35th Biennial, Hayward, California
1992 7th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration, Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1992 Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, Mill Valley California


AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS

2006 American Artist Magazine Award, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri
1999 Coconut Grove Art Festival, Coconut Grove, Florida, Second Prize Watercolor
1998 National AIDS Memorial Grove,San Francisco, Poster Commission
1998 Gasparilla Festival, Tampa,Forida, Juror: Thelma Golden-Whitney Museum, Honorable Mention
1997 Coconut Grove Art Festival,Coconut Grove,Florida, First Prize Watercolor
1990 San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus, Concert Poster


SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Bechtel Corporation, San Francisco,California
Kaiser Permanente Corporation, California
Nordstroms, California
The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Michael Berry M.D. & Lloyd Burton, San Francisco, California
Harold Chusid, San Francisco, California
Georgie Clark, Bethesda, Maryland
Harold Clumeck, San Francisco, California
John Fetros, San Francisco, California
Maureen Flaherty M.D., San Francisco, California
Richard and Deborah Hawkins, Portland, Oregon
Eric Hochheimer, Amsterdam,Holland
Robert La Monte, San Francisco, California
J.R. Church, San Francisco, California
William F Owen Jr, M.D.,San Francisco, California


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Salisbury Post, November 10 2005, Bolingbroke Watercolors, interview

San Francisco Bay Times, San Francisco ,July 14 2005, Iconography Review, Dana Van Iniquity

Artweek, San Francisco, April 2004 “Hunters Point Open Studio”

Santa Rosa Press Democrat,  April 27 2003 “Artistry at Hunters Point” Mark Aronoff

Nevada City Times,  April 2003, Show Review

Miami Herald, February 18, 2003, Coconut Grove Art Festival interview

San Francisco Frontiers Newsmagazine, October, 2000, San Francisco Open Studios

Watercolor Magazine, A Quiet Splendor by James Metcalf. Summer 2000

San Francisco Chronicle, Jesse Hamlin, October 1, 2000, Open to Sharing: Three Artists Open Their Studios

San Francisco Frontiers Newsmagazine, October, 1999, San Francisco Open Studios

The Sentinel, March 2, 1989, An Artists Profile Michael Gunsaulus


PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

2001-2006 Artists Guild of San Francisco, Board President
1996-2000 Artspan Board Member (producers of S.F. Open Studios),
1991-1992 Artists Guild of San Francisco, Board Member
1989 Gay and Lesbian Artists Alliance, Founder and Member


GRANTS

2001-6 Visual Aid Grantee, San Francisco, California


EDUCATION

2000-2001 City College of San Francisco, Intaglio, Life Drawing
1995 City College of San Francisco, Monotype course
1970-1973 BSc Geography, London University
1969-1970 Pre-Diploma Year Winchester College of Art

 

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