212 Arts is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Paul Richard’s work entitled “Non-Essential Man”.

Despite his abilities as a representational painter in the gallery setting, Richard’s street art possesses a playful sense of spontaneity and quickness as he manages to capture the quintessential short-hand features of his subjects with nothing more than a dripped contour line of paint. While most artists prefer the vertical spaces in the city's landscape, the drip by its very nature must be on a flat surface, but this is not even the main reason Richard works in this orientation. Even before 1997 when he first moved to New York, Richard has always recognized that people's attention constantly scans the ground in front of them making it the perfect place to find an audience. The recognizability and popularity of his drip work is a testament to Richard’s creativity in using the sidewalk as his canvas.