BIO

Longmont-based artist Richelle Cripe is a painter whose works are fueled by philosophy and personal discovery. Her paintings explore color theory through the use of a restrained palette and the worlds of possibility that exist when we tune into the choice of imagination and allow our own perspective to be changed in the process. She holds dual BA degrees in Art History and Fine and Studio Arts, and was a PhD student in the University of Colorado’s ATLAS program.

Prior to 2020 Richelle was an abstract artist, exploring process-based intuitive painting with a strong emphasis on color relationships. During lockdown she created a series of desert landscapes on a whim and has been building a body of dreamy vistas ever since. Her current work is a deeply feminine, colorist’s take on the historical tradition of western landscape painting.

ETHOS

Richelle grew up in the quiet hills of southern West Virginia sketching floor plans on graph paper and making elaborate structures from scraps and cardboard, more interested in building worlds than playing with the toy inhabitants. She checked out the maximum number of books on weekly trips to the library, but it wasn’t just about reading; the library itself was a secret world full of mysterious systems and archaic machines.

Romantic about the past but realistic about the future, Richelle embraces new technology without abandoning her love of traditional systems. She loves not just reading books but the physicality of books, painting for the gesture of painting, and computers for the unique language of code. Richelle is a citizen of two worlds: the pre-digital era and the newly made digital frontier.

ARTIST STATEMENT

With every decision made, another route remains untaken. At each fork in the road are the shadows of the choices we didn’t make. Living alongside this reality is another world of untapped possibility that glimmers momentarily when caught by the right angle of sunlight. It’s hard for me to describe what draws me to art, but I believe my fascination originates from this idea. For me, painting is about opening up those other worlds of possibility: that other half. As an ambidextrous person, I’ve always felt this pull. The tension between art and science - the right brain and the left - is a theme in my life. By day, I’m a technologist working in the language of computers, which is a very regimented and analytical space to inhabit. Yet, I’m also an artist with a palette full of colors, using my intuition to quilt together landscapes and complex color combinations. Although this tension exists, I find that neither side is dominant (or both are dominant). It’s a complex and liminal space that I take joy in exploring.

When I paint, I tap into my unconscious mind and make each decision organically. None of my paintings are planned. I spontaneously make one decision - and then another - oftentimes with brushes in both hands. I intentionally introduce more decisions, rather than less, into my work to create more possibility in every painting. At times, I’ll choose a color for the sky above the desert’s sprawl only to discover that a previous choice I made no longer works with the new vision. So I revise my course, leaving another alternate painting just beneath the surface of the final one. The outcomes are as surprising to me as someone seeing them for the first time, and it’s this feeling that keeps me coming back to the blank canvas. As a colorist, the surprise of seeing my final paintings is even more profound when I apply the same, limited color palette to two or more works, which always yield wildly different worlds. My focus is never on the end result because my interest lies in the process of the journey - the exploration of the choices we make and the ones we don’t. Through this process, two outcomes unfold - the half that is and the other that has yet to be.