Artist statement:

The question mast often asked about my paintings is where do they come from? The answer for me is they come from the everyday and what is seen in it. The bright red sports car is realistic, yet you look closely at the chrome and you find things that aren’t I take the chrome and structure it with the red and an image emerges. Artists have always been influenced by the stain, paint on the floor of the studio, reflections, and seeing what others have left behind. For myself, my work, even though referred to as abstract, is only a matter of seeing what is there and not a abstracted image.
Colour is fairly evolutionary. What one colour does next to another is a matter of experiencing and growing in their sophistication of use. In my work colour is about emotion and the vibrance of life. There are subtleties, of course, but like life it isn’t going to go unnoticed. With regards to influences, Expressionism has played a large role, especially that of the German Expressionists, Der Blaue Reiter, and the Colour-Field Expressionists.

Biographical information:

Rick Tunkel is a New York City born, mid-career artist He earned a Bachelor of fine Art degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He also received a Master of Science degree, working In mixed medium, from the University of Tennessee end the Arrowmont School of Art in Gatlinburg. Tennessee. Art became an interest early on because of growing up with a mother who was a painter and worked at the U.N., and a father who was a craftsman and worked for the N.Y.C. fire department. The family moved to Florida where the environment became a factor in his artistic senses. Spending a lot of time at the Ringling Museum of Art and later taking classes there furthered the influence, However, it was the year and a half spent In the Azores, living among the local Portuguese art and crafts, that produced his sense of coulor and overall surfing ability. He worked primarily as a printmaker during the early eighties, and was represented by Circle Fine Art, a New York City art dealer, He soon became Involved in making paper as an art form and for the next fifteen years he appeared at national craft events like the American Crafts Council show In Baltimore and showed at a hundred plus galleries. He also did group shows as far flung as Los Angeles and Finland. During the nineties, he returned to printmaking as a digital artist and that produced a new insight and a return to painting.