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Born in the Bronx, New York based artist, Rich Rethorn, began drawing at the age of 3, favoring images of dinosaurs and famous monsters of the classic Horror films of the 1930s and 1940s over the cartoon characters in children’s coloring books. As a teenager, his schoolmates would commission paintings on their denim jackets of Rock album art. Skulls and fantasy and surrealist art of masters like Salvador Dali, Frank Frazetta and HR Giger were an early influence as well as Punk Rock style and antiestablishment ideology. Decay, deformity and Hellish scenarios became the subjects of paintings fueled by the satirical sociopolitical commentary of musical artists like Jello Biafra of the band Dead Kennedys and their album cover art by Winston Smith.
Leaving art school and taking a job at the sprawling necropolis that is Woodlawn Cemetery, Rethorn |
continued to use his newly acquired oil painting skills throughout the 1980s and 90s, exhibiting his work at NYC’s Lower East Side venues, Alleged gallery, Max Fish and CBGB’s 313 gallery. Simultaneously taking part in the mail art movement, with the creation of the art & literary ‘zine, Headpump, he distributed his drawings worldwide. After 4 years with the collective Subculture gallery in Little Italy, he cofounded the East Village art and music venues Lit Lounge & Fuse gallery, which opened in 2002 with an HR Giger solo exhibition.
Rethorn continues with the creation of large-scale acrylic paintings after working in 2010 at Seen Studios in Paris.
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