Rick Berry
Berry’s expressionistic figurative paintings are in private collections worldwide, including those of authors Neil Gaiman, Stephen King and George R.R. Martin. His art is exhibited in venues such as Italy’s Lucca Museum of Contemporary Art and galleries in NYC, Boston, and San Francisco.
Up from the streets, having left school at 17, Berry’s work blends contemporary graphic sensibilities, futuristic vision and and a mastery of anatomy.
Practitioner-in-Residence for Tufts Institute of Global Leadership, 2005, Berry has also created multiple solo exhibitions for TIGL international symposia on various urgent socio/political topics. He’s designed collaborative oil painting events before audiences in Italy and New York. A popular speaker at colleges, he provides practical advice on how one can use art to see beyond conscious mind to release the cognitive powerhouse for making discoveries and resolving conflict.
In addition to galleries, Berry’s art appears on countless books and comics, and is featured in major historical anthologies of contemporary illustration. Berry is credited with creating the world’s first digitally painted book cover in 1984 for William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Joining up with Gibson again, he acted as Keanu Reeve’s cyber-stunt double for the award-winning CGI climax, designed by Anderson, Berry & Bodio, in Columbia TriStar’s Johnny Mnemonic.
Berry’s paintings of Amanda Palmer’s new music were featured in her kickstarter campaign famously funded for over a million dollars and others were included in her year long tour. During his artist residency at American Repertory Theater, he created a series of large oil paintings for the set of Cabaret, staring Amanda Palmer. These won a Silver award from NY Society of Illustrators, just one of many awards and distinctions received during his 30 year career of art in popular culture. Two books of earlier paintings are Double Memory (with Phil Hale) and Sparrow 6:Rick Berry.