Ryder Richards Unveils Public Work Honoring Fallen Dallas Police Officers
Glasstire.com, Christopher Blay, July 23, 2019 [link]
Through his work, artist Ryder Richards often examines what he describes as “the pressures and resultant response of the individual within a dominant (often violent) culture.” This scrutiny has led to Richards’ Resilience and Remembrance, his new public artwork for El Centro College in downtown Dallas, which was unveiled last Wednesday.
The installation is comprised of eight lights atop the canopied entrance to El Centro, and a strip of blue light down the middle of the walkway. It was here that on July 7, 2016, five police officers were killed in the line of duty. The installation honors both those officers and their wounded colleagues.
After working on the piece for the past two years, Richard writes of Resilience: “Besides the obvious light memorial aspect, I wanted the piece to function as a way-finding path to a safe space, so that it could serve a practical function in addition to its symbolic role.”
PRESS:
El Centro College unveils installation honoring July 7 ambush fallen officers, FOX 4 News, July 17, 2019
FOX 4 PRESS
Wikipedia:
Dallas, July 7th, 2016 [link]
Ryder Richards is a Dallas-based artist, writer, and freelance curator. He co-curated Boom Town at the Dallas Museum of Art, directed The Cube in Roswell, New Mexico as part of a one-year artist-in-residence program, and co-developed the RJP Nomadic Gallery. He has shown work in London, Germany, Spain, China, Greece, Japan, and across the United States. Ryder has been a member/founder of several collaborative art groups including The Art Foundation and Culture Laboratory, as well as participating in the Texas Biennial 2011 and 2013 and the Dallas Biennial 2012 and 2014.
Ryder taught college art for ten years, travels, attends art residencies, and writes the occasional art review, which prompted him to found EUTOPIA: Contemporary Art Reviews. Currently, he is creates a podcast, Let Us THINK About It, and daily insights at Belly Button Lint.