Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present Jim Richard: New Work, an exhibition of paintings, works on paper and collages.

Three large paintings anchor the exhibition: two are domestic interior scenes. Thin Slice features a highly stylized bedroom with a large abstract painting floating in the middle of the room. Party depicts an assortment of tabletop items, with a clock that says it is 12:30. A riotous expanse of gestural abstract brushstrokes hovers above. Modern Emblem is a mix of three abstract patterns, with the central pattern of polka dots covering a cylindrical chair.

Richard is known for combining various types of generic abstraction with over-decorated rooms. Certain painting styles may remind us of numerous artists’ work, and the period decors (usually 1950s through 1980s) appear to be from idealized magazine spreads, or stage sets from sitcoms or plays. There is no human presence – only the viewer as voyeur.

Richard is a great editor of images. His source material includes exhibition and auction catalogues and shelter magazines. He may save an image for years before combining it with others to create a collage, work on paper or begin a painting. The unexpected results are not only clever, but also witty. The juxtapositions of art and objects are thought provoking and revealing, and posit the age-old question: Does that painting look good above the sofa?

This is Jim Richard’s (born 1943) second solo exhibition with the gallery, and his twenty-second overall. Richard’s work is in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans (where he had a solo exhibition in 2012) and other institutions including the Progressive Art Collection. He has had solo exhibitions at Inman Gallery, Houston; Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans; Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery, New York, and numerous other venues. He is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in Painting and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in Painting. He lives and works in New Orleans.