SOMA NewArt GALLERY

Richard Samuelson presents his newest work, an exhibit of Digital and Mixed Media Paintings. Samuelson's exhibit is an odd coupling of themes and subject matter; full of references to modern masters like Picasso and Edward Hopper, and representing subjects like war, the interiors of baroque churches and the pleasures of sculpture gardens. They are bold, vigorous and loaded with imaginative visual inventions. The common thread to all the paintings is that to some degree they are digitally manipulated.

In Looking Into the Deep, a Hooper reference, the image is a digital collage,  Guernica Revisited, a reinterpretation of the Picasso painting, here paint is applied over the digital image.

Golden Night, references Richard's elaborate sculpture garden, a project Samuelson has been working on for the better part of a decade in the side yard of his house on the Cape May Canal. "It is a place of continual inspiration, solace and pleasure to me.  So the notion of trying to find some visual form to express that ongoing inspiration was entirely natural."

A traditional painter Richard has found an artist sensibility and inner consistency in using these new techniques. "While at first I was skeptical, I found that traditional and digital techniques can come together into what seems to me to be a deep and true creative partnership.  I'm excited about the new possibilities it has opened up for me."