reviews_and_ramblings | Ins & Outs: a collection by Paul Richmond

This is not a simple art book, it’s almost a memoir. Following Paul Richmond (see his post with me here http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/800368.html): excursus in the art world, from his beginning to his today experience as gay romance cover artist, we can clear see also his personal evolution.

The first paintings are almost haunting, most of the time with dark colors and, truth be told, sometime not so clear to understand. They are some time like plots of colors, plots that sometime hide a great pain or a personal search for a meaning of life.

Then the colors change, they are brighter and almost at the same time the Cheesecake Boys make their appearance. I can almost see the new Paul Richmond, a guy who finally arrived to realize / understand some complicated layers of his personality, and now he is able to show it to the external world. The Cheesecake Boys are happy and almost innocent, they have at the same time the naiveté of the ’50, with their colourful and happy interiors, and the naughtiness of being young and free.

Other than the Cheesecake Boys, in this period Paul Richmond comes out (pun intended) with some less “illustration” paintings, like the ones already published inside Stripped Uncensored (by Bruno Gmunder) or the one he presented at this year OutAuction in New York City, an happy and gay Noe’s Arch.

Probably due also to his new happy and out side of him, Paul Richmond lately was more than willing to borrow his work to the cover art world. In the cover art he produced you can see all his experiences of above, from the happier one, like the Cheesecake Boys, to the more intimate and personal. Each piece could probably stand out as independent painting, being exactly that, a painting and not a simple cover image.

Ins & Out is a wonderful art book, but it’s also the personal experience of an artist, and a fascinating travel with him along his evolution path.

Buy it here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20978518

Art by Paul Richmond