Richard Mayhew

Richard Mayhew
Richard Mayhew’s retrospective, currently on view at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, presents an artist whose work defies expectations. Mayhew, of African and Native American descent, is a painter whose style reflects his European and U.S. travels more than the social activism or artistic trends of the 1960s, the period during which his artistic career began. True to this nonconformity, his work on display at MoAD both functions within the genre of landscape painting and simultaneously broadens the genre’s definition. Mayhew’s paintings explore the delineation between the picture (meant to be beautiful) and the landscape (sublime—great and sometimes terrifying). Much of his work on display demonstrates a childlike exploration of color and mood, in which he pushes traditions of landscape painting and its Romantic precedents into freer and more psychedelic territory than painters of prior periods did. The peace and playfulness of Mayhew’s vision is tenable. His work negotiates art historical influences, reflecting the style of European artists while also evincing the artist’s own development and diverse cultural influences. Most of the work occupies a space around landscape painting, broadening the genre’s definition to include looser and more spiritual realms.
Copyright © 2022 WaterKolours. All Rights Reserved