Richard Des Jardins of Quebec, Canada, was selected as the featured artist for display at Gordon Munro Fine Art Gallery in Cary, NC for themonth of October. In the current exhibit, Des Jardins’s art uses juxtapositions of media, color, texture, line and shape,which result in three-dimensional designs.
”Most of my training is from art school,”says artist Richard Des Jardins, “and I value those academic principles because they teach you how to see and how to apply that vision to so many other creative areas.” Des Jardins, who studied Fine Arts at the Université du Quebéc and the École des Beaux-Arts in Quebec, Canada, spent his formative years working two-dimensionally. But a career in visual merchandising with companies such as Modern Bride and Mattel Toys, as well as set, interior and floral design, required him to work three-dimensionally.
Like many contemporary artists, Des Jardins leaves the interpretation of hiswork open for the viewer. However, theartist names his works according to how he views each piece. Many of his works are collages using multiplematerials. His art has been displayedrecently at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Fire Island in New York. After the exhibition in Cary, Des Jardins’s art travelsto the House of Art in Miami, featured in the world-famous Art Basel event.
The Gallery’s owner, Gordon Munro, an established fashion photographer from New York City, selects a new artist each month to showcase a this studio in the upscale Prestonwood area of Cary. The gallery holds a monthly open house on the second Friday of each month when the artists are available to explain their artistic techniques and answer questions. The current Des Jardins exhibit of modern art runs through November 8th, 2014.
About the Artist
Richard Des Jardins studied Fine Arts at Universite du Quebec and Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Quebec , Canada . His creative eye led him to a career in visual merchandizing for the home furnishings market and later took him to New York , where he applied his artistic ability to floral, set and interior design.
He was a free-lance set stylist and set designer for Modern Bride and Mattel Toys and since 1985 has been an adjunct professor in the Interior Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. A painting course in the year 2000 and an exhibition of his work in two juried shows has inspired him to include painting in his creative expressions.
His abstract work has been characterized by geometric shapes and strong colors and in recent years the addition of collaged elements bringing detail and the unexpected to his paintings.
About the Gallery
Gordon Munro Fine Art Gallery, located alongside Gordon Munro’s Cary Portrait Studio, features the workof painters, sculptors, fine art photographers and printmakers, both local and national.
Having spent much of his career shooting for magazines such as Interview,W, Vogue and Bazaar, Gordon Munro is known for his fashion photography, studio work and celebrity portraiture. Born in England, Gordon was inspired by the works of famed photographers such as Richard Avedon, Hiro, Art Kane and Irving Penn, the latter of whom he worked with for four years following his move to New York inhis early twenties. In the decades since, Gordon has had a thriving career in fashion, beauty and editorial, with a resumé that includes the likes of Lancome, Revlon, Clinique, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, Judith Lieber, and Bill Blass.
During his decades-long career as a photographer, he satisfied his curiosity of the arts by visiting Manhattan’s many varied galleries, among them the Museum of Modern Art and the Met, alongside the more avant-garde examples in SoHo and Chelsea, such as OK Harris Gallery and the Gagosian, and those specializing in photography, among them Pace McGill, Staley Wise and Howard Greenberg.