Rick Berry (artist)

Rick Berry (born June 2, 1953) is a contemporary American expressionistic figure artist based in the Boston area.

[2] Berry's work has appeared in many science fiction, fantasy and comic books, including Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Magic: The Gathering cards, and Stephen King novels.

[3] His first commissioned painting for the book industry was a cover for Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, published by Simon and Schuster, 1978.

The team of Rick Berry, Darrel Anderson and Gene Bodio employed state-of-the-art tech advances to design and produce the CGI cyberspace climax - the award-winning sequence featured in SIGGRAPH's animation revue, 1996.

[2] In 2010, Rick Berry and frequent collaborator, Phil Hale, were the subject of the museum exhibition "Parallel Evolutions" at Lucca Center for Contemporary Art, Italy.

A decade earlier, Berry had designed the festival’s now ongoing live collaborative performance site featuring international artists working together for the first time.

[8] Examples of topics Berry explored include human trafficking, conflict resolution over limited resources, the politics of fear, and the advancing globalization of China.

Back in the studio, Berry would put aside these small sketches and without photography or models, he relied upon his unique process of discovery in the paint and his memory, to evolve large scale works for gallery exhibitions.

In 2010, Amanda Palmer invited Berry to engage in her upcoming production of Cabaret at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Once again, he employed his process of rapid ink drawing while embedded in rehearsals, later producing large expressive oil paintings as a part of the café theater set.

Influenced by the intensity of the story, performers, and Butoh movement in this production, Berry created works that were "like images of ghosts projected on smoke and ash.

He was also selected by Arthur Dion of Gallery NAGA Boston in 2009 for Juror's Choice Award at Cambridge Art Association, Point of View exhibit.