Richard Baker

After studying design and illustration along with painting at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, I had a lengthy career as a graphic designer and illustrator in Los Angeles and Orange County before I eventually came to abstract painting. 

Along with my commercial art assignments, I always found time for my personal painting. I was painting with watercolors and then more and more with acrylics. In the beginning I strived for kind of realism and felt I had reasonable success with this, but eventually I begin to feel unfulfilled. My paintings never seemed to measure up to what I had envisioned. At the same time, I was using the computer in my design and illustration projects, and experimenting with generating abstract paintings electronically. This was fun, and eventually led back to the paint brush, the canvas, and abstract painting. And that's where I am today.

With abstract painting, I feel I'm not bound to anything. I can experiment and explore and take risks that I haven't before. This brings something new for me and for the viewer. It's still always a challenge with design, color and composition with abstract painting, that never changes, but the results come with what develops from experimenting, and where that might lead to.

Richard Baker • bakerstudio@sbcglobal.net