Website: https://www.ricohouston.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ricohoustonartist/
Rico Houston born Richard Lawrence Thayer in 1974 in Dallas,Texas, is an American abstract painter,designer, and electronic musician. Raised in South Florida, he attended Dillard High School of Performing Arts. Where he studied color theory under Janet Siegel Rogers a Pratt Institute graduate with very strong academic ties to Black Mountain College. She knew Josef Albers and was his student.
He studied classical drawing and painting at The Corcoran Museum School in Washington DC, learned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University, and pursued graduate design studies at Pratt Institute in New York City.
In New York he worked for Totem Design an avant garde design gallery. It was there that he interacted with world famous industrial designer Karim Rashid who influenced him with retro futuristic ideas.Rico left his sales job and worked as a professional Industrial designer of high end furniture for Morgik Metal in Manhattan for 3 years.
When his family retired in Panama he followed. In Panama he started The Nusun School of Art a small commercial space offering classes. After 5 years in Panama he moved to Madrid Spain where he discovered transcendental meditation. Some of his paintings hang in a Meditation center in the UK.
His first wife was from London so he moved to the UK with her after 3 years in Spain. Eventually he had his studio for 5 years in London on Portobello Road in Notting Hill. It was in that London studio after decades of painting he painted his first Door of Perception painting. At the time Rico worked in Canary Wharf as an Art Dealer for Halcyon but sold his work independently without gallery support. It was around this time he also bought his first synthesizer.
His experiences in sound and color design now inform a disciplined geometric abstract way of working built from modular forms(every painting connects with the other)and carefully tuned color relationships( the colors react with each other to make colors appear that were not painted). His paintings explore color perception/vibration, meditation, consciousness, light and transcendence. His music explores the industrial ideas about science fiction,isolation, and space.
His work has been exhibited at The Ft Lauderdale Museum of Art, The Tallahassee Museum of Art,and two solo shows in independent spaces in Panama and London.
Presently Rico works in the fashion industry for Hugo Boss, his studio is an artist loft in Carrboro. His second wife Ewa Thayer is from Poland and is also an artist. The two of them are working together to eventually become full time artists.
