August ArtHop pick: Celebrating Richard Silva’s legacy at Fig Tree Gallery and Corridor 2122
By Donald Munro
I miss Richard Silva’s voice. When he talked, it’s as if he had a smile attached to every word. The Fresno artist used to call me to tell me every now and then about his new shows. I’d know his voice the second he said hello. His enthusiasm for making art seemed to know no bounds. I have a painting of his in my living room, and sometimes when I pass by, I think about how much he loved painting.
The artist, who died earlier this year, was a widely regarded abstract expressionist painter in Fresno and beyond. For decades he had a studio space next to Fig Tree Gallery. A retrospective of his work at Fig Tree Gallery, where he was a member since 1999, opens at ArtHop (5-8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 1) and continues through August.
His work, curated by longtime friends Bill Bruce and Mac Mechum, will be for sale. There’s so much work that once something sells, it will be replaced on the wall with another work right away, so people can take their paintings at time of sale.
Coincidentally, just around the corner, members of Corridor 2122 are hosting a separate exhibition honoring Silva featuring artworks of his from the private collections of gallery members and friends. Those members describe Silva as a tremendously prolific artist, engaging gallery neighbor and frequent visitor to Corridor 2122.
I love this take on Silva from Bruce, a Fig Tree Gallery member:
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“I think Richard’s contribution to the Fresno art community was his dedication and enthusiasm. He was like a railroad engine going down the tracks. Nothing was going to stop him from making art. If he didn’t have a piece of canvas to work on, he’d find a piece of cardboard or scrap wood to paint or sculpt. He knew so much about art. He could talk intellectually about art, painters, art history. The quote on his studio wall, by William DeKooning, was his motto, ‘I don’t paint to live, but live to paint.’ He may go down as Fresno’s premier abstract expressionist. People try to imitate him, but they can’t.”
Silva once gave Bruce a painting of a bird (see image at top of story). Bruce recalls: “A bird doesn’t have to look like a bird, but you know it’s a bird, just as recognizable as an Audubon bird. This bird didn’t have a beak on it, so Richard insisted on taking it back to fix it. He made a colored paper beak and glued it onto the painting!”
Here’s an excerpt from a Fresno Bee story I wrote in 2008 about Silva:
You need a pretty thick skin to be an abstract expressionist. And Richard Silva is more than tough enough. At his new exhibition at Fig Tree Gallery, Richard Silva gives us an intriguing new collection of his work that swirls together abstract expressionism, figurative elements and one of the great loves of his life: jazz. In a series of works devoted to jazz great Charlie Parker, Silva alternates abstract images with clear depictions of the man and his saxophone.
In all the works, which consist of blacks, whites and grays, the balance of light and dark is paramount. Some of them are downright blunt in concept and execution, such as Silva’s “Black Drawing,” which he executed not with a brush, but with a simple stick and rag. (Still, he gets a lot of control from a mere stick and rag.) Though there’s little color involved, Silva has a way with his grays — creamy, lush, strong — that gives a texture and vivid presence to the work.
What I like about this show is the way you can imagine Silva in the middle of his paint-splattered studio, a big canvas on the floor, flinging paint and building to a crescendo, all to deafening jazz surging through the speakers.
I miss those phone calls, Richard.
For more ArtHop possibilities, check out the Fresno Arts Council’s website.
