RICHARD ROTH

New and Recent Work

September 11 – October 30, 2026

Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce Richard Roth: New and Recent Work a forthcoming exhibition from California-based artist Richard Roth. For more than fifty years, Roth has explored the relationship between painting, sculpture, color, and ordinary objects. His newest exhibition brings together recent work with earlier pieces, revealing an artist who continually revisits his ideas while allowing experimentation, not certainty, to guide his practice. Bringing together Roth’s jar paintings, “box” paintings, Kaput series, and large-scale flat paintings, the exhibition reveals the formal relationships that emerge across these distinct bodies of work. Roth describes the larger works as “unruly,” referring to their scale, unconventional forms, and relationships within the gallery space. Roth’s studio practice is rooted in experimentation. He begins by constructing life-size prototypes using materials like cardboard, colored tape, and paint, allowing forms to evolve before committing to a finished work. “Crazy experimentation first,” he says. Only after this period of exploration does he refine the composition into its final form.

The development of each work follows its own timeline. Some compositions resolve almost immediately, while others undergo months of revision through changing forms and color relationships. Roth documents all his work including unfinished works, creating an archive he revisits over time. “Sometimes I return to a piece years later,” he explains, allowing earlier ideas to become the foundation for entirely new pieces.

California Dreamin’, 2024, Acrylic on faux fur fabric on wood panel, acrylic on wood panel, 67 x 63 inches

Although vibrant color is one of the striking characteristics of Roth’s work, he resists assigning it fixed symbolic meaning. Instead, he describes color as “the spice” or “the icing,” an element that enriches the work without being its central subject. For Roth, the underlying structure and forms remain the true foundation of each piece.

The Kaput paintings mark a significant shift within Roth’s work. Named after the German word meaning “broken” or “destroyed,” the series reflects both the humor of the word and broader feelings of instability. Influenced by the California earthquakes, political uncertainty, and the dynamic compositions of Russian Constructivism, the tilted forms of the Kaput paintings introduce a deliberate sense of imbalance, as well as narrative implications.

Roth’s recent jar paintings extend ideas first explored in his early glass works from the 1960s and 1970s. Constructed from clear plastic containers painted on the inside, the works blur the line between painting and sculpture while inviting viewers to imagine what each vessel might contain. Roth embraces the mystery and illusion that emerge through reflection and transparency. The jars reference the everyday materials of the artist’s studio while transforming them into contemplative works of art.

Richard Roth includes several distinct but related bodies of work in the exhibition: his signature 3D “box” paintings measuring 12 x 8 x 4 inches; larger, wall-based, geometric paintings; two leaning panels that create optical illusions; a Kaput painting which suggests a fallen work; and a sculptural work composed of painted jars and a bright red metal cart. Together, these works continue Roth’s investigation of the boundaries between two and three-dimensionality in painting.

Garamond, 2024, Acrylic on wood panel, 60 x 48 inches

About the Artist

He has exhibited nationally and internationally at select venues including L21 Gallery, Mallorca, Spain; Valletta Contemporary, Malta; Pulpo Gallery, Germany; Galerie Rob de Vries, The Netherlands; HICA, Highland Institute of Contemporary Art, Loch Ruthven, Scotland; Rocket Gallery, London; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA; David Richard Gallery, NY; The Suburban, Oak Park, IL; Feigen, Inc., Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; OK Harris Gallery, NY; and Castelli Warehouse, NY. He is the co-editor of the book, Beauty is Nowhere:Ethical Issues in Art and Design. His debut novel, NoLab, was published in 2019. His work was included in the book, 100 Painters of Tomorrow, Thames and Hudson, 2014. He was a faculty member in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1999 – 2015; he chaired the Department from 1999 – 2008. He has also taught at The Ohio State University, Columbus; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; New York University; the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design – University of Central England; and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1991 he was the recipient of a Visual Artists Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts. He received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and a BFA from The Cooper Union. He presently lives and works in Southern California.