Painter
Richard
Osaka.
Working in Los Angeles, CA
About the Artist
Work from the archive.
Flowers that don’t exist in any garden.
Richard Osaka paints flowers — but not in the way the word suggests. His acrylic canvases are dense, saturated, almost hallucinatory: twisted imaginary floral forms in colors that have no natural equivalent. They are vivid in the way that Los Angeles is vivid, which is to say fully and without apology. Osaka studied at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena — the same school where Tom Christopher trained — and has taught painting and drawing at Pasadena City College for two decades.
He won First Prize at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, juried by LACMA curator Michael Darling, and has shown at gallery spaces in Los Angeles and New York. He is also a writer: Osaka has contributed cultural criticism and reporting to Art World Confidential under a Lift Trucks Special Report byline, covering art events in Los Angeles with the same sharp eye he brings to his canvases.
Osaka’s connection to Lift Trucks runs through a shared education, a shared sensibility, and a willingness to engage with the art world on his own terms. His work sits comfortably alongside the painters and sculptors in this building — not because it looks like theirs, but because it comes from the same conviction that color and form are worth taking seriously.
“An honest decision could not be made without doing the work first.”
Richard Osaka · LIFT TRUCKS ART
Featured Work
Works
From the collection.
Come visit the studio.
Independent studio and exhibition space on Route 22 in Croton Falls, NY. 50 miles from New York City..