Paintings

Richard Gins has painted in his Red Hook, Brooklyn studio for more than four decades. His paintings move between figuration and gestural abstraction, using metaphors like windows, masks, cut-outs and shadows to explore the tension between inner and outer experience. Here are four bodies of work: Esoteric Realism, Group Therapy, Chiarobscuro, and Landscape.

Esoteric Realism

“I coined the term Esoteric Realism to contain and represent this large body of work. This work captures something fundamental about humanity and essential about human suffering. It represents a painful condition of man being stuck in an unconscious state of being, unable to see it or change it.” Obstructions, Inner Figures, Cut Outs, Masks, and Windows & Shadows all belong to this body of work.

Group Therapy

“I consider my Group Therapy series to be a kind of Post Abstract Expressionist sensibility, with gestural mark-making, abstraction, and figuration all working together in the painting, emphasizing the surface and creating spatial tension. The Freudian connection in these pieces refers to the sexual innuendoes suggested by the forms. The figures are also in relationship with one another, which supports the idea of a therapy group.”

Chiarobscuro

“I coined my own term, ‘Chiarobscuro,’ that signifies the intentional casting of darkness or shadows, which in turn obscures the form and breaks up the composition into lit fragments and dark shapes. To really understand light, I must also understand its opposite, the darkness.”

Landscape

“I like to work outside using my French easel, working directly from the landscape (En Plein Air, Alla Prima), which is exciting and challenging, having to rely on my ability ‘to see,’ draw, and work with color. I also create landscapes that are born out of my imagination. My landscapes, made either from life or invented, usually reflect my ongoing interest in pictorial space, abstraction and gestural mark-making.”