Robert Richfield
Time Travel : Travel Time
Robert Richfield was born in Covington, KY and raised in Cincinnati, OH. He first became interested in photography as a teenager and left the Midwest in 1965 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design where he received a BFA and MFA in Photography in 1969 and 1972, respectively. During his years at RISD, he studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, whose photographs profoundly influenced him.
Richfield has employed his distinctive multi-paneled format for over 30 years. Early in his career, he felt unsatisfied by single images and began to create large-scale color panoramas consisting of separate panels joined together to form one.
His recent work, Time Travel : Travel Time, an exploration of the many railroad stations he has visited and photographed throughout his career, employs this extended perspective created as he rotates his camera, often through more than 360 degrees. Photographing not only what is in front of him but what surrounds him – beyond his normal field of vision – creates images that are a direct result of his constant effort to see and reveal more. Richfield’s technique forms a sort of optical illusion realized in the assembled photographs implying an accurate depiction of space; in actuality, he has created his own alternate reality. The images in Time Travel : Travel Time experientially imply movement through time and space.
An important trademark of Richfield’s photographs are the clearly defined lines of the panel edges. Rather than creating a seamless image, Richfield chooses to leave these “joints” as visible pieces of the composition. His life-long struggle with acute Osteoarthritis has created a strong self-awareness of the physical fragmentations and fusions of his own body. Thus his photographs are reminiscent of human life patterns, each panel representing a separate moment that when fused together illustrates a complex and fascinating overlap of memory, history and the passage of time.
Photographs by Robert Richfield are in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Cincinnati Art Museum, The Getty Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work is also featured in many private, institutional and corporate collections such as Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, and the Berman Collection, Los Angeles.
Flash Forward 10
A Gallery Kayafas celebration of our Featured Artists and Friends
Flash Forward, the renowned emerging artists platform out of Canada, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Gallery Kayafas is proud to partner in the festivities by highlighting the many achievements of the gallery’s artists and friends that have been a part of this vibrant organization’s journey. During the month of April, the gallery will highlight nine artists featured in the 10th anniversary edition in the lead up to the annual Flash Forward Festival in Boston.
Gallery Kayafas artists: Caleb Charland, Caleb Cole, Matthew Gamber, Greer Muldowney, and Tara Sellios. Featured friends: Michael Bühler-Rose, Jonathon Gitelson, Irina Rozovsky, and David Welch. Each of the artists will be exhibiting new work.