Ilene Richard is an artist and illustrator working at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, MA. She has published many children's books through book giants like Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill and Macmillan. She has also had numerous group and solo shows of her paintings.
Her illustrations are tight and careful in execution, her figurative fine art paintings are loose and free, and both have high energy and bold color. The paintings have a little cartoon and a little (yes, again) Alice Neel in them, and are vibrant and almost singing with energy. The shapes she uses are flat and appealing, the compositions leave great negative shapes around the figures which she fills with big colors and funky landscape items.
The females in her paintings have a self presence that reminds me of Mary Cassatt females. Even if posed in classically female surroundings, dress, or situations, sometimes uncomfortable in some way, the women all seem inhabited by someone smart, solid and THINKING. So many paintings that are of women lack this sense of being inhabited, and I always love when I see it.
Ilene's artist biography on her site is an inspiring story of perseverance and hard work.
