Jean Marc Richel is a french artist living in the USA.  Over the years, he has developed several mediums. Some are traditional like oil painting on canvas and book illustration.  Others, such as etching and enhancing photography by hand, painting with inks and dyes on Epson Pro Photo Paper, and reverse prints, are not so traditional.  For him, art is a perpetually inventive and creative process.

He has exhibited widely in the US, Europe, and Asia.  His work is in private & public collections in France, USA, Holland, UK, Ireland,Germany,Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore. He is represented in Colorado by Gallery 44.  He currently works & lives in Santa Fe, where he owns STUDIO17.

“I paint because while my mother was pregnant she worked in a gallery and I smelled oils, turpentine, and varnishes before my first taste of milk.
“I paint because at the age of 10, I saw a beautiful reproduction of a Modigliani nude and I fell in love.
“I paint to try to make sense of the whole circus: birth, life, joy, suffering, decay and death.
“I paint because I have tried poetry, prose, videography, movie-making and photography, and Painting is still calling me.
“I paint to align my Heart, Mind and Body.
“I paint to be close to Creation.
“I paint because 1+1=3.
“I paint to be Human.
“I paint to be.
“I paint.”

– Jean Marc Richel, 2016

A crop of this painting is located on this issue’s fiction page.