Rick Fox Biography
Rick Fox (b.1968) is known for the rugged energy and the colliding shapes of color in his plein air landscapes. Since moving to Maine since 2013, Fox has been granted access to a well of inspiration that continues to unfold. He compares the thrills and challenges of painting the tidal shifts and the ever-changing weather and light on the coast of Maine to riding something untamed. “There isn’t a blueprint,” he says. “It’s human nature to want certainty, to discover a way of doing things, but it’s all too exciting out there. The information is in flux, coming at you from all angles, and the effort of trying to hang on forces spontaneous invention.”
Fox was able to reconnect with his Irish roots when he was awarded the Ballinglen Painting Fellowship in 2019. He was surprised to find County Mayo’s wild moodiness a close cousin of the Maine coast, and the strange familiarity allowed him to pick-up related threads to inform his work back home. He has since returned County Mayo, and selections from his Irish landscapes are now in the permanent collection at the Ballinglen Museum of Art. In addition to Maine and Ireland, Rick has traveled throughout the United States and Europe to paint in direct relationship to the landscape. He returns frequently to several places that have become places close to his heart, including Italy, Seacoast, NH, and Wellfeet, MA.
Fox earned his BFA in painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As an undergrad, he also studied painting at Scuola Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, Italy. At the Massachusetts College of Art, where he earned his MFA, Fox had the good fortune to work with Marcia Llyod, George Nick, Jon Imber, Gregory Amenoff, and John Walker. These inspired artists have all been a lasting influence.
Fox has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the Mark Rothko Center in Latvia, Playa in Oregon; the Heliker-Lahontan Foundation on Cranberry Island, ME; and the C-Scape Dune Shack Residency in Provincetown, MA. He is a two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields grant, and he received a grant from the William James Association in partnership with the N.E.A to design and implement a Painting and Drawing program for inmates in federal prison. In 2022, Fox was the recipient of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Piscataqua Region 25,000.00 Artist Advancement Grant.
Fox’s work has been exhibited extensively nationally and internationally.