ABOUT THE ARTIST

Richard L. Dana is a self-taught artist with an unusual past. Initially intending to major in Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, due to a course in 19th Century Russian literature, he instead pursued and received a B.A. in Russian Studies in 1975 and then an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1977. From 1977 to 1988 he worked as an economist and Soviet Affairs expert in Washington, DC. From his university days up to 1988 Richard spent much of his free time creating art with ever increasing passion; in 1988 he decided to dedicate himself to the said creating of art.

While having focused on the creation of computer-generated digital art for the past several years, in the past, present and future Mr. Dana has worked, and will continue to work, in a range of media, including mixed media painting, drawing, and installations. His work comes in sizes from very small to very large.

Richard has had 25 solo exhibitions and has participated in over 150 group exhibitions. In the United States he has exhibited in New York, Washington, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, among other places. Internationally he has exhibited in Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Russia, Senegal, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Mr. Dana has also worked as an independent curator and, among other venues, has presented exhibitions at: The National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC); The World Bank (Washington, DC; three separate exhibitions), The Sumner School Museum (Washington, DC), The Art Center/South Florida (Miami, FL), The Virginia Beach Center for the Arts (Virginia Beach, VA), The McLean Project for the Arts (McLean, VA), The Athenaeum (Alexandria, VA), and The Arlington Arts Center (Arlington, VA).

Mr. Dana has had extensive experience as an arts activist and administrator in the greater Washington region over the years. He is a cofounder and project director of the international artists collective, Take Me To The River (TMTTR); since 2002, TMTTR has staged nine large-scale cultural projects internationally and in the United States. He has served as project director of the Central Asian Cultural Exchange, overseeing artist exchange projects between American and Kazakh artists and a similar project involving Uzbek artists. Richard was a co-founder and member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of Art-O-Matic from 1999 to 2006; Art-O-Matic is a unique, one month long, large-scale, multimedia cultural event staged throughout the Washington, DC, region. In addition, he has served on the board of directors of numerous non-profit arts organizations in the greater Washington area.