Self-Taught Artist Richard Ficker

With the exception of a painting class I took in high school, I’m a self-taught artist. I found that I was always thinking like an artist, paying attention to light, shadow, and shape, negative & positive space, form, and perspective. I dabbled a bit in commercial art, and painting, right out of high school, but as fate would have it, life got in the way and I found no time for it. I always meant to get back to it, because I knew it was what I should be doing. In 2002 at the age of 49 realizing no one really knows how much time one has, I started painting. I think it is one thing to have the talent, but you also have to have the creative passion for it. I guess I’ve found the passion. I paint a variety of subjects, surreal, sometimes from dreams or fantasies or landscapes and foliage inspired by my surroundings. I enjoy portraits and the human form. Water is another inspiration which appears in many of my paintings. As a lifelong surfer I have always lived around the water. I love it.

Water is moving, smoothly reflective yet translucent. It can be every artists dream or nightmare. Some of my paintings contain hidden secondary images and things that are not what they seem to be. Sometimes I do this just to amuse myself and sometimes as the premise of the painting.

I hope you enjoy my work as much as I do creating it,

Rich Ficker, Merritt Island, Florida                                                                                                

www.richardficker.com