photos courtesy Reid Richardson, bottom

Reid Richardson has been “working like crazy,” cranking out a new series of surrealist landscapes marked by sandstone reds, midnight blues, majestic waves and moody clouds, the latter of which are his brush’s favorite obsession.
The 25-year-old artist thought he was destined to be an animator until he took a painting class and later graduated from ASU with a fine arts degree.
He first garnered attention with a series of empty rooms – realistic, muted and plaintive paintings that invited viewers to fill the space. Scottsdale’s Art One Gallery brought the pieces to a special show in Zurich, where they sold out on the first night. Richardson immediately stopped painting empty rooms. “I went to all these museums; I saw more work in those nine days than I had in my life,” he says of that trek to Europe. Afterward, “I didn’t show for a year and a half. I didn’t want other people’s opinions to cloud my judgment.”
Privately, he’s been cycling through artistic styles like an iPod on “shuffle”: abstract art, expressionism, pop art and impressionism. He’s ready for an audience again, and his latest work reflects what friends jokingly call pluralism, a combination of many styles. “Experimentation is always going to keep happening,” he says. “People should have many tools in their arsenal.”
See his work at Wilde Meyer Gallery, 4142 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale, or online at reidrichardson.com.