Montana-based painter Richie Carter has been traveling to Paris for the last six years and staying in the same apartment for a month at a time. The view out over the famous city has become his muse as he watches the light and weather dance over the buildings and monuments. When it finally came time to assemble the works together and show them, a title leaped out at him—Se Préparer,which translates loosely as “to prepare oneself.”
Richie Carter in his Montana studio.
“It’s been very serendipitous. I’ve been preparing for this body of work for five or six years as I’ve been traveling to Paris. Every time I go I stay in this same apartment which has rooftop views out over Paris. It’s kind of like a second home for me. And it provides endless inspiration,” Carter says. “This one view, in particular, is one that I can’t get enough of. It’s just so beautiful and dramatic. Everything culminated to this view.”
The new grouping of paintings, as many as 20 pieces, will be on view starting May 9 at Arcadia Contemporary in New York City. It will be his first solo show at the prominent Manhattan gallery known for its contemporary realism by top artists.
We’ll Make it Through, oil on linen, 33 x 42"
The most prominent view from this new series of French paintings is from the Montmartre area, which has a magnificent perspective of the Eiffel Tower in the far distance. In many ways, though, the key to these paintings is the apartment in the immediate foreground with its mansard-style roof, clusters of chimneys and a single skylight. Carter will often paint one of the windows on the top floor illuminated.
“I don’t know who lives there. It’s in a totally different building that I don’t have access to, but I would love to know who it is. I don’t add anything into the paintings that aren’t already there. I just show up and paint what’s in front of me. That little light in the window always makes me curious about who lives there,” the artist adds. “Paris has been painted by everybody, so who knows if those windows have been painted before, or even if an artist has lived there before. It’s certainly a possibility.”
Please Don’t Go Home Yet, oil on linen, 28 x 24"
Carter says he was browsing Instagram one day and found a painting of Paris featuring similar windows and rooftops, though this work was set during winter with snow blanketing much of the scene. The work was Vue de toits (Effet de neige) by Gustave Caillebotte, one of the more realistic impressionist painters of the late 19th century. “It’s such a beautiful view and proves that Paris really is timeless,” he adds.
The Old Master, oil on linen, 30 x 16"
Other artwork in the Arcadia show will include vertical street scenes done in Carter’s distinct tonalist style. The works, pieces such as The Old Master and Campo, are complex examinations of value and how he can use it in smaller vignettes of cityscapes. “I do see a lot of my work as tonalist that really focuses on a value shift,” he says, though he admits his larger landscapes of Paris do have elements with strong saturation of light and color.
Some of Carter’s Paris discoveries originated from fellow painter Daniel Keys, who has done his own exploring of the City of Light. The two artists have traveled together and routinely show each other new subjects.
Avant La Nuit, oil on linen, 16 x 20"
Carter adds that when he returns home, the artworks themselves have been on quite a journey. “These works travel all around the world. I’ve taken panels to Paris, Venice, England…they go on adventures with me as I paint. It reminds me a John Singer Sargent, who would travel with his sketches and studies, and he would stay with dignitaries and meet interesting people. There’s this romantic idea of a traveling artist that I feel when I travel with my paints,” he says. When it comes to the logistics of traveling with paints, Carter says he takes small tubes of paint that go in his luggage, and then also packs a stack of 8-by-10-inch panels. They dry somewhat quickly after they’ve been painted and they travel fairly easily in a suitcase. “Sometimes I’ll ship them back, but most of the time they make the journey with me.”
Se Préparer, oil on linen, 20 x 20"
For Se Préparer, Carter compares his Parisian cityscapes to some of the work of Claude Monet, particularly how Monet would return to the same subject over and over again. “I love how much he was painting the same subject matter—different light, different times of year, and when he was different ages,” he says. “This idea that you’re seeing the same subject as time changes—and as I change, too—is really fascinating to me.” —
Arcadia Contemporary 421 W. Broadway • New York, NY 10012 • (646) 861-3941 • www.arcadiacontemporary.com
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