RICHARD RANCK

    I have been holding pencils and the like since I was very young. And using them to answer questions, to pose wonder, to solve an inner need to visualize yet again what is already in front of or in me.  I have devised myriad reasons for same as well as wordy justifications .

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I have sought by them to seem awfully smart.  When, dear reader, the art you make need do all the talking. 

In Art School, before and after, I was able to draw the figure reasonably well.  For what seems obvious to me, I was drawn to the nude.  (see the pun?). And, to a lesser extent, portraiture; to take the figure in front of me and place her recognizably on paper or canvas. For which I received some recognition, the apogee of which was Disdain for False Authorities.

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Personal difficulties provoked travel and change of direction. I went to Australia and found hope and help.

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Now, working abstractly, I called my work primitive. Of course, I’m not now nor have ever been a ‘primitive’. But it is what I found in early culture art, primarily Aboriginal Art, where I learned about Dream Time, which freed the academic shackles gripping me.

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I think I understand their reasons for art: to explain and communicate with the unseen and spiritual.  Forces they could not see but wanted to appease.  I strive to understand through my mark making and carving the inner and the outer world.  And appease it before I die. While with my art, share my love of being.

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Dick Ranck attended PAFA from 1971-1975.

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Resume, videos, journals at https://dickranck.com