Richard Whitten grew up in Manhattan, NY, a child of an American Businessman and a Chinese Painter. He earned a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of California at Davis where he studied with both Wayne Thiebaud and Robert Arneson. He has had numerous exhibitions on both coasts. Notable are major solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington, the Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Zillman Museum of the University of Maine. The Fenimore Art Museum has recently presented his was in a two-person exhibition: “A Cabinet of Curious Matters: Nancy Callahan and Richard Whitten” 2023, and the Morris Museum presented a solo exhibition of Whitten’s work: “Set in Motion: from the studio of Richard Whitten” in 2024. He is honored to be a recipient of a 2023 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and a resident of Yaddo in June 2024. "Since 2006, I have created paintings which transport the viewer through the surface of the painting into a world of imagined architectural spaces populated by similarly imagined machines. These paintings invite viewers to bring the worlds inside of them to life – to propel the machine into motion – through sight and thought alone. Once the viewers have passed into the world of the painting, they are invited to use their imagination to activate the machine within. The machines I depict have a variety of possible functions and are often inspired by the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance inventors. These machines tend to include elements that suggest motion, such as flywheels, gears, and ropes. I believe my depiction of “moving” elements provides the viewer with an entryway into their imagination. To track an object in motion, a person's eyes must move. This movement of the eye signals life to the mind. Even if a thing is not living it can seem alive, like a leaf blown in the breeze. When the viewer tracks the potential movement of a machine in my painting, it creates the illusion that the painting is alive."