ABOUT THE WORK
Each collection begins with one or more hand-drawn designs, each a structural unit that repeats across a set of individual canvas panels. The panels are then photographed and composed digitally, creating bold and colorful arrangements from the same physical elements.
The work is engineered spontaneity: a system rigorous enough to hold together and loose enough to surprise. Color does the expressive work, saturated and varied across each panel to create compositions that feel simultaneously ordered and chaotic. Up close, uneven edges, visible brushwork, the texture of paint on canvas make the handwork clear. From a distance, it resolves into something that looks almost inevitable.
The underlying logic mirrors how life actually feels. What appears simple generates complexity, and the two sit together more comfortably than we usually appreciate. Influences range from the modular sculpture of Donald Judd, to the colorful geometric abstraction of Odili Donald Odita, to random color arrangements found in nature.
RIck J. Watters
ABOUT RICK
Rick Watters is an Austin-based artist who came back to art the hard way. He made work when he was younger, then set it aside for a more practical path. The kind of decision that seems reasonable until it isn't.
In 2024, a chronic illness diagnosis changed everything. When he lost his dog Josie during that period, he started making portraits of her. That was the re-beginning. Art became the one activity he could do during a flare, and then gradually it became more than that.
About a year and a half into his recovery, he made a trip to Marfa, Texas. He spent time with Donald Judd's work there, wasn't overwhelmed by it honestly, but something about the way Judd used repetition and variation to explore states of being stayed with him on the drive home. Back in Austin, he started developing his own modular system: a repeating design unit, varied through color and arrangement, asking similar questions through paint rather than metal and concrete.
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