PIVOT POINTS  |  First Generation Painter

Richard Lazzaro

Richard Lazzaro's gouache paintings, "The Taiwan Series," were produced for a one-man exhibition at the Taichung Cultural Arts Center of Taiwan in celebration of the new millennium in December 1999. However, the exhibition was postponed due to the devastating earthquake that destroyed much of the city and killed more than 3000 people. The series has since been dedicated to the city of Taichung in memory of those lost in the disaster.

The works represent a calm revelry of tranquility, love, and peace—a unity of one for the new century. The images define time and space, and the psychic energy or sensory communication transmitted between persons or objects. The calligraphic marks are characters that become signs for ideas and qualities not directly depictable. Many of the marks take on animal or vegetal life with the vitality of graffiti and the power of myths, dreams, and other sources of personal, spiritual and collective symbols. The works are inspired by Chinese brush painting and the Rationalist Neo-Confucian philosophy of li, the unifying force connecting all things, giving them reason, and ch'i, the substance of things serving to differentiate and individualize things. The world is ideally a well-ordered system governed by the harmonious interaction of li and ch'i.  

Commentary	Two Intents		Gathering the Past		Prodigy