August 20th - September 29th, 2021
This is Richards' second series of Book of Mormon paintings, each painted while looking through a stone--meditating on and coming to terms with Joseph Smith's revelatory process. Painting through a stone forced an abstraction upon these compositions, removing the text from most geographic or cultural specifics, and forcing the artist to trust the process, not fully knowing what the result would be.
In response to why Richards' chose 1 Nephi 17-18 for this series, the artist writes:
"it has been the most formative Book of Mormon passage in my own development. In these verses, Nephi returns to the mount oft in search of divine instruction. I have similarly turned to God in an effort to craft my own curious workmanship. And I have wrestled with the implications of attaining a promised land."