Richard K. Kent (b. 1952, Bethlehem, PA; lives in Lancaster, PA) has a BA in English Literature from Oberlin College, an MA and PhD in Art History from Princeton University with a specialization in Chinese art and archaeology. He is Professor of Art History at Franklin & Marshall College. Since 2003, he has participated in over 50 juried and invitational exhibitions at venues throughout the United States, including Maryland Federation of the Arts, Annapolis; The Garner Center, New England School of Photography, Boston; BronxArtSpace, NY; the Darkroom Gallery, Essex, VT; Art Association of Harrisburg, PA; Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA; Demuth Museum, Lancaster, PA; Lancaster Art Museum, PA; Galleries of Northern Kentucky University, Louisville; Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ; Rourke Art Gallery and Museum, Moorhead, MN; Woodmere Art Museum and Gallery 1401, The University of the Arts, both Philadelphia; Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA; and Larson Gallery, Yakima Valley Community College, Yakima, WA. His work has received awards at many venues, including First Place for Photography in Art of the State 2017 at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. Works from various series have been mentioned or published in The Boston Globe, Pennsylvania Heritage, The Photo Review Newsletter, Little Patuxent Review and Lancaster New Era. Kent’s photographs are in the collection of The Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall College and Lancaster Museum of Art, both Lancaster, PA as well as The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Statement from the Artist:
As an artist, I use the photographic medium to explore the documentary, the fictive and visual conundrums that fall in between. My photographs echo and extend my concerns as a writer, since my practice for decades has been twofold and sustains an effort to come to terms with my own existence and how it is affected by the changing reality of places important to me. My most recent series“Lessons in Recursion” marks a shift to both using color transparency film and the incorporation of digital means to produce prints for exhibition. From a conceptual standpoint, it is the most ambitious project I have undertaken. While it explores the visual phenomenon of recursive progression, “Lessons in Recursion” also reflects my interest in the subject of ordinary landscape, temporal change and the potential complexity of photographic representation.