Mast on Fire, 1980

These seminal works by Richard Bosman pulse with anticipation and anxiety. Drawing from TV detective series, mystery novels, film noir, and comic books, Bosman’s characters are staged in various psychological dramas. The artist’s evident brushwork renders murder plots and high-stakes encounters with dramatic immediacy, each painting delivering a thrilling dose of action and suspense. In Uptown Murder (1981), a climactic rendezvous unfolds from above. In the large composition’s distorted perspective, the billowing drapes, the woman’s dress, and the downturned, bleeding man capture the essence of Bosman’s raw visual language. On a smaller scale, Mast on Fire (1980) demonstrates the artist’s ability to render gripping scenes with a close-cropped fervor. Bosman plays with the affective possibilities of painting as a medium and narrative device, unfolding a space for imagined crimes, rapture, and humor.  

Richard Bosman (born 1944 in Madras, India) has painted tragicomic fictions of modern life tinged with frank melodrama and humor for over four decades. He was a pivotal figure in New York’s Neo-expressionist movement and has exhibited widely since the 1980s. His work is included in public collections internationally. Bosman lives and works in Esopus, New York.