I find it to be a wonderful tool for exploring composition, explorations that inform my paintings and sculpture. Working with numerous different materials, I am able to look at relationships between various shapes as well as everyday objects. Working small allows for experimentation and free expression. Whenever I travel, I keep a collection baggie, a notebook, and a glue stick in my pocket, journaling my trips with images and shapes from found papers, objects, and trash wherever I might be. This new series emphasizes the negative spaces between the forms -- cutting away material -- as well as the traditional method of overlaying different shapes. Currently, I am also obsessed with geometry and color. I am inspired by Calder, Miro, and Motherwell.
I am thrilled that this new direction has been recognized by my inclusion in the finals for 8 Visions. Thank you for considering this work.
Bio
R. Douglass Rice attended Phillips Exeter Academy where he took his first sculpture class with Richard Lyman. He attended Stanford University where he studied sculpture with Richard Randall and earned a degree in Human Biology in 1974. He also studied painting at the Mendocino Art Center, San Francisco State University and the School for Visual Arts in New York.
In 1987 Rice moved with his family to New York and raised their two children in New York City’s Soho District. He worked in his high-end residential company from 1987 to 2015. During this same time, Rice maintained a studio in Tribeca. He has exhibited in numerous galleries over the last forty years, including two shows at the National Arts Club. After his second show there in 2008, he was invited to become a member and continues to serve on the club’s Round Table committee and is a current Exhibiting Artist member. Rice was a board member of the Bronx Museum of the Arts for ten years and served as its Chair from 2009 until 2013. He is currently Chair Emeritus of the museum. He is an elected artist of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, The Mystic Museum of Art and the Artist League of Rhode Island. He is also a member of ACGOW and on the board of Expressiones, a Latin American art gallery and residency in New London, Ct. In 2016 Rice moved to Stonington, Connecticut full time from NYC. He now paints and sculpts full time and shows at local museums, galleries, parks and estates.
