Richard K. Stephens made his first painting, based on a Van Gogh reed drawing, in 1968. Since then he has worn numerous visual art “hats,” having been a free-lance curator in Los Angeles Visual Silences, Los Angeles, 1988: John McLaughlin, John McCracken, Mary Corse, Tom Eatherton, Edith Bauman-Hudson); art historian, mentored by John Gage (University of Cambridge; J. M. W. Turner studies) and Linda Nochlin (Institute of Fine Arts; Bonnard, Symbolist movement); art critic; researcher for the catalog raisonee of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He has made paintings intermittently from 1958 through 2003, resuming painting again in 2023 with the Arrival series.
The paintings in the Arrival series are what might be called “contemplative neo-icons.” These vertical-format oil paintings are like pictographs, with an upper symbolic image (Heavenly) floating over a lower one (Earthly). The Earthly image is a sleeping newborn child surrounded by a dynamic burst of radiance.
The scale of the Arrival paintings – roughly 5 by 3 foot – is determined by their inclusion of a life-size image of a newborn child. The image of a sleeping newborn is selected for its formal beauty, for its suggestion of complex potentiality, and as a symbol of the mystery of consciousness.
The Heavenly images that appear in the paintings’ upper area are borrowings from a variety of famous Medieval and Renaissance devotional artworks. These images are appropriated not in a spirit of ironic critique, but rather in a spirit of connoisseurship of visual art and its styles and symbolism.
The mature work of Abstract Expressionist Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) is a direct influence as are medieval Orthodox Christian icons. Other influences include the works of William Blake, Odilon Redon and Cy Twombly.
The series involves wide variation in color, in paint handling and in choice of specific image. There are also Arrival triptychs that feature three different historically-sourced elements hovering above the child.
The overall effect of an Arrival painting is one of contemplation and reverence. It invites the viewer to reflect on the interplay of divine and innocent, of celestial expanse and nascent life. The paintings are intimately tactile and evocative, inviting one to engage in personal interpretation resonating with universal themes.
