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© Rick Rogers Ontogenesis

Rick Rogers

ISAP, ASA, SWCA

Biography

As an adult, I remember with a touch of amusement, the bitterness of not finding finger paints in my stocking on Christmas morning. Who could really blame Santa? But the simple joy of playing with those squishy pigments at grade school is a sensation that remains vivid for me today. Art and design have always been interests for me, but aside from relentless doodling, focused art-making was set aside after junior high for academics and athletics.

A work assignment away from home was the catalyst for my return to art-making. I thought I needed a pastime, but so enjoyed a drawing course that art became much more. Sketching and drawing shifted quickly to printmaking and painting, first with watercolours, then acrylics and oils, and finally with mixed media. My background in science led to study and experimentation with each medium until I naturally gravitated to the versatility of acrylics as a base medium with mixed media elements. And science has naturally become a familiar and prevailing ally to my artistic practice.

Over the past few years I have realized that experimentation is fundamental. A transcendent creative vision cannot be achieved without experimentation, whether in the process and materials used, or the visual design and feeling expressed. It is not difficult to use methods already mastered, but to progress an artist has to continually challenge their mode of work.

I have had many inspiring mentors over the years. Foremost, I have to thank my collaborative friends in the GOOPof7 and my colleagues in the International Society of Experimental Artists, for their fellowship on this artistic exploration. It is always exciting to share the failures, the successes and the surprising results with fellow experimenters.

If I hadn’t become a visual artist, I guess I might have become a mad scientist.

Artist Statement

Art and science are never so separated as western culture makes them seem. I consider myself both scientist and artist, an experimental creative.

In my studio, as much time is spent developing and understanding natural phenomena, artistic media, tools, and techniques, as is spent composing, developing, finishing and installing paintings and objects, the tangible products of my creativity. All of these processes are essentially exploratory, experimental, and creative.

Life as a creative is an endless and exciting repeating cycle of theory/vision, experimentation, assessment, application, finishing, and finally, inspiration. It is important to my personal philosophy that the last stage of the cycle is inspiration. Pablo Picasso said “Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.” My perspective on his wisdom is that inspiration is the ultimate product of the work we do as creatives. Finishing and installing a piece provides inspiration to the artist as well as the viewers, be they other artists or not.

Of course, this means that a work of art hasn’t really fulfilled its complete potential until it is seen by a wider audience than just its maker.

I hope my works inspire their viewers. Whether they are inspired to feel an emotion, interpret a message or theme, evaluate and assimilate or innovate a technique, or create something in their own avenue of creativity. Inspiration is fulfillment.