Matthew painting, PARIS OPERA HOUSE, 2006. Photo by Ben Richter
Marilyn Richter, (1932-1984) painting by the pond at her studio, Auburn Kansas, 1983,

When I was young I used to paint and draw with my mother, Marilyn Miller Richter, in the countryside. I learned from my mother how art elevates the human spirit and saw why that is vital to life. I learned at a very early age from watching her work progress. She taught by example the value of discovery, self determination and independence of thought. She showed me that it took courage to grow, innovate and create works of integrity and depth.

At home I was able to work in clay, build puppets, photograph and express my self with lots of available art materials.

FORMAL EDUCATION
Graduated Topeka West High School, 1971.
Attended Washburn University 1971-72
Bachelor Fine Arts, Kansas University, Major in Fine Arts, Painting, 1979

The land and the narrative of place in relation to the living human spirit is what my art work has always been about. I like the wild and wide open spaces. I seek out wilderness areas to hike and camp. I draw from my internal visions and understandings of what wilderness means to Americans.

If Americans have anything original left to teach the world surely it is our love of independence and freedom of ideas. If we loose our creativity of thought, ability to envision and our capability to bring those visions to physical expression then we simply become a culture of dumpster divers.

Putting great art into the eyes and hands of our children concretely tells them that they matter as individuals because you have placed value on a unique vision created from the heart and hands of a human being. A child continually surrounded by mass produced everything does not believe they personally can take control of their world. They wait for someone to bring answers to them because they have not seen creativity of hand or mind and even worse, believe others are magically endowed with it. Quite frankly creativity and participation in it is like a walk around the block. You are going to have to take some steps of your own if you want to get somewhere.

WHY I PAINT VISIONS OF THE LAND

Americans do not live on the land anymore. We depend on massive inputs of golbalized energy suppliers. 24 hours without electricity forces most of us out of our homes. Three weeks without gasoline would bankrupt 25% of our households because we could not get to our jobs. Most Americans don't know who makes their food or what is done to produce it or where it comes from.

We have not forgotten we need to eat and find shelter to stay alive but we have forgotten how to do that without destroying the earth in the process. Even worse we have forgotten how to care if our children have a chance to survive with what remains.

How we treat the land is a direct reflection of how we treat each other. I paint the wilderness and historical landscapes of what we have lost. These are emotive renditions of what ecologists call sustainable ways of living. I want to encourage American visions of self reliance in our communities based on the ancient model nature provides.

I doubt we will all start to live in teepees but if you've bought a car and spend a couple of hours a day in it commuting and running errands you may not realize you ARE ALREADY living in your automobile. Not just in it but for it too. In addition odds are high you or someone you love will be severely injured or die in that automobile. Sounds like a risk you can live with until it happens. I guarantee you at that point you will wish you picked the teepee instead of the automobile to live in.

Which brings us back around to creativity, vision and the way we treat the land and each other.

My studio and home is in rural McPherson, County South Central Kansas. Our family is surrounded by wildlife in the grassy, marsh lands of a Kansas Parks wetlands reclamation project. We are fortunate to live beneath the great wide open skies of the prairie. The rolling storms come in the spring along with the energy of the Kansas wind. We face the baking summers and the blasting cold of winter. All of this puts us close to the land and the light of the sun.

I am also spending time painting and working in the Colorado and Wyoming Rockies. While I primarily use memory and emotion to create my work I also incorporate sketches, photographs and computer graphics.

My first company was a house painting business and I contracted in the years 1968-1974.

Moving to Lawrence, KS, in 1972, to attend Kansas University, I first started exhibiting paintings with the 7E7th Gallery, in 1977. Run by artist and mentor, Judy Geer Kellas, 7E7th Gallery was a wonderfully supportive and friendly place. I also helped with gallery building jobs.

As my skills developed I was asked to work for Euler Construction, a custom home building company in Lawrence. During those years, 1976-1978, our most notable project was KU Professor of Architecture, Carolyn Crawford's, octagonal solar home in 1977. I learned rough carpentry and cabinet making.

I graduated University of Kansas, B.F.A. Painting 1979. At KU I studied Plein Air painting with Robert Sudlow and enjoyed the vibrant instruction of the abstract expressionists teaching there in the 1970's.

Allison Gullborg and I were married in 1979 and we moved to McPherson Kansas for what we thought would be my one year temporary job as Artist-In-Schools with the public schools. Three years later we found I had completed three separate residencies and Allison had become a tenured instructor in the PE department. We have remained in McPherson to raise our three children, Kiya, Ben and Zane Richter.

During those early years of teaching in the 1980's, Allison and I were able to travel during our summers to Arizona, Utah, California, New Mexico, Colorado, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Texas, New York State. All the time I was making art, translating my deeply felt attachment to the wild landscape of America into paintings, drawings and serigraphs. Throughout this period I mainly painted representational works and showed them at private galleries in Kansas and New Mexico and at national juried and invitational exhibitions.

In 1983 I opened Prairie Art & Sign, a graphic arts and commercial sign shop which I continue to operate in rural McPherson County, KS. As a successful commercial designer for over 30 years I've created hundreds of graphic designs, signs, electrical displays and permanent site installations. I've enjoyed making print graphics, web pages and animations. I am able to do my fine art giclee reproduction prints within my studio.

During the middle 1980's to mid 1990's my fine art works were mainly acrylic and mixed media on paper. These landscapes were abstract in style. In the late 1990's I returned to Plein Air painting and directly representational art works. I find the cycle of going out into the land, painting and bring back the impressions and notes is very satisfying for me and others.

Recently I've returned to painting and fine art because it is more satisfying and better expresses the experiences the world has given me to share with others. My goal is to make work that is uplifting and inspirational. I hope it helps you feel connected to the source of life.