Professional Artist, Ric Conn

I am currently represented by the Grimandi Art Gallery in New York. I am an internationally known, award winning, expressionist artist; inspired mostly by Toulouse-Lautrec, Edvard Munch, Picasso, Matisse and the German Expressionists. Utilizing oil, acrylics, gouache, charcoal, and ink I create paintings that reflect relevant social issues, equality, empowerment and psychological conditions. My work is concerned not with objective reality but rather the emotions, objects and events that arouse within a person, reactions—positive or negative—especially with the understanding of the self. Distortion, exaggeration, and fantasy are the filters through which I paint the modern world. I focus primarily on figurative depictions of the female experience and I am inspired to look into the realities women face in Western culture focusing on their courage and beauty.  My work is different—it is not conventional, academic, or even the new modernism. I am creating a new avant-garde.

I have been named “Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art for 2020,” “Artist of the Decade 2010-2020,” and “Artivist (artist/activist) of the year 2019 and 2020” by Art Tour International Magazine. Additionally, I have been featured in their summer, autumn and winter issues (back cover artist), and in American Art Collector. I was awarded Artist of the Future by Contemporary Art Curator magazine.

I have had many solo and group shows in Baltimore, Columbia, Annapolis, Frederick, Stevensville,  Centreville MD; Washington, D.C.; and Manhattan, Chelsea, New York City. I have been featured in articles in several newspapers, and magazines, including Art Tour International Magazine, Art in America’s issue on galleries and artists in America and interviewed on television, both local and network. Although I am mostly self taught, I studied at the Corcoran College of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  I have paintings in private collections across the United States and Australia.