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Rick Fleury: Coastal Views
May 13 June 25, 2006
(above: Rick Fleury, Faith, Hope & Happiness, triptych, 54 x 162 inches)
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Rick Fleury has been painting beautiful and peaceful coastal landscapes of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Maine for more than ten years.
Fleury, a self-taught artist has a studio in Provincetown, where he is inspired by the big sky and big ocean landscapes all around him. Working with oil paints on primarily large canvases, the artist subtly blends colors from the land to the horizon, minimizing divisions and creating a sense of unity and serenity.
For this Cape Cod Museum of Art show he has created his largest work to date, "Faith, Hope & Happiness," a triptych, 54 x 162 inches which he painted in the course of one week after months of careful thought to the logistics of its execution.
Also on view are several works of the artist's Copper as Canvas series -- all miniature landscapes of his favorite coastal views. CCMA Exhibitions Curator Michael Giaquinto has chosen to display 18 of these five by seven inch works of oil painted on solid cooper as a dramatic grouping on one wall.
Fleury says that painting on copper dates back to the 16th century and was often by artists used for religious or spiritual subjects. Art scholars and historians differ on the techniques used by these masters, but all seem to agree that there remains a degree of mystery as to how the copper was treated to receive paint. This artist has discovered his own technique and intends to keep it a mystery as well.
In most of the copperplates, Fleury has left a portion of the copper untreated and unpainted, intentionally allowing the work to change over time as the copper ages from shiny metal to verdigris, and become a "living component" of the artist's work.
Rick Fleury is a graduate of the University of Colorado. His
work has been in several Provincetown shows and galleries as well as juried
shows in Cambridge, Boston and Florida. He plans to open his own Gallery
in Provincetown in the near future.
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