Richard G. Ramsdell

New York, United States •

Artist (Printmaking) •

Born 1957 •

History is a minefield of slumbering ideas ... awaiting a heavy foot.

Richard G. Ramsdell graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology (BFA), Salzburg College and the University of Florida (MFA). He is a two time National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient and has exhibited in sixteen US states, six countries, and has works included in four institutional collections.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Ramsdell received his first camera when he was 5. By 12 he had discovered the comfort of a darkroom. Inside, the seeds of a 44 year career were formed. When he was 24 those seeds began to grow and Ramsdell created his first artworks that used sampled/appropriated images. This was the also the time that musicians such as The Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, and New Order began to sample music and visual artists such as Barbara Kruger, Mike Bidlo and Sherrie Levine began to appropriate images.

Appropriated images (music) come with an aura of built-in associations (re: Walter Benjamin, 1935) that can be (among other things) used, enhanced, subverted and/or supplanted. By creating “mash-ups” of these images I hope to achieve any or all of the following: tell a story, make a joke, create beauty, evolve a tradition or just have fun.

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Ukiyo-e Dreams • 9 artworks

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The images in this series (Ukiyo-e Dreams) are based on 18th–19th century Japanese woodcut prints. Image [...]