Britt Richie’s newest collection, Scattered Focus | Random Memories, bursts with bright colors, natural motifs, and lots of layers. While parts of the collection seem to lean more into the deeper meaning behind the show, other pieces feel more light-hearted. For example, party hats teeny tiny canvases, and a painting of a pineapple all find their way into this show. In Richie’s words, “this exhibit represents the action of adjusting and the resuming of creating during a period of time that, for me, felt both overwhelming by external forces and underwhelming by external limitations.” As life-altering as a global pandemic is, Richie found a way to channel any uncertainty about the state of public health into her art.

“Seemingly unrelated subjects began to come into focus of interest. Those unrelated subjects were tied together by working with essential elements of familiarity, by repeating graphic elements, layering techniques, or by mimicking color schemes,” says Richie. Her oil paintings capture a spirit of unity. The blood-red and sparsely placed petal pinks of “Graphic Flora” show this. The piece has darker spots where the pattern nearly becomes one with the layers beneath it.

Arguably my favorite color palette of the collection, Mackinac 04 meshes the harshness of contrasting colors with soft, floral shapes so well. As Richie mentioned, she is a fan of mimicking color schemes. Vibrant and meticulous color selections can create quite the reaction to these pieces. That reaction for me was one of familiarity. The color palettes of several paintings call your attention back to other works, searching for similarity in a series that is so diverse.

Scattered Focus | Random Memories will be on display for the month of June in the Gallery Annex.

Scattered Focus | Random Memories