Richard Bosman, Untitled, from the Atelier International Portfolio, 1985

This 1985 work, depicting a man being overwhelmed by nine bats coming at him from all angles, feels eerily prescient today, as bats are known to carry various kinds of coronaviruses. It also recalls the famous Tarot card "Nine of Swords" in the classic Rider-Waite deck, the ancient divination method used the world over. The Nine of Swords card, often referred to as the "dark night of the soul", or simply "nightmare", depicts a figure sitting up in bed, unable to sleep because they are tormented by nine swords coming at them from all directions. Whether the swords are real or imagined in a dream state is left to to the card reader (or viewer's) interpretation. In the present work, the nine bats appear almost like swords - with the stark, thick textured black color highlighting their ominousness. Bosman's man is still standing, but his arm is lifted defensively over his face, which is completely covered, so we can only imagine his expression of horror. Richard Bosman (born 1944 in Madras, India) is an Australian-American artist living and working in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Bosman is best known for his paintings and prints. His work is often related to crime, adventure, and disaster narratives; rural Americana; and nature and domestic themes. A major figure in what has been called both new expressionism and the figurative expressionism movement, Richard Bosman's arresting images are often enigmatic and disturbing. He utilizes a single-frame, stop-action technique derived from both film and the comic strip. Many of Bosman's paintings and prints capture and freeze moments of fear and catastrophe. Rough, imperfect compositions and vivid textures give underlying emotional content both to his narrative and his more calm seascape subjects. Like his paintings, his prints are often drawn from popular sources such as comic books and and adventure novels, and present scenes from remembered or imagined stories.

A major figure in what has been called both new expressionism and the figurative expressionism movement, Richard Bosman's arresting images are often enigmatic and disturbing. He utilizes a single-frame, stop-action technique derived from both film and the comic strip. Many of Bosman's paintings and prints capture and freeze moments of fear and catastrophe. Rough, imperfect compositions and vivid textures give underlying emotional content both to his narrative and his more calm seascape subjects. Like his paintings, his prints are often drawn from popular sources such as comic books and and adventure novels, and present scenes from remembered or imagined stories. The images seem familiar and allow viewers to recognize just how much they have become part of modern life.

Though these works present recognizable images, they are not particularly realistic, preferring to exaggerate for emphasis and to draw attention to their fictiveness. Rather than slices of life, they are life served up as a dessert or an appetizer.In addition to the Elvehjem Museum, Bosman's works have been shown at the 1988 Venice Biennale, The Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), The Walker Art Center (Minneapolois), The Toledo Museum of Art, the University of Maine Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), the University of Connecticut, Storrs, the Fairfield University Gallery (Fairfield, CT), the Rhode Island School of Design Print Gallery (Providence), the Mandeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan Museum of Art (Ann Arbor), Weber State College (Ogdon, UT), Washington University, St. Louis; University of Kansas, Lawrence, Tulane University (New Orleans), the Columbus Museum (Columbus, GA), The University of Illinois, Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY and the Fort Wayne Art Museum (Indiana); his works have also been shown in galleries in NY, San Francisco, London, Milan, Munich, Valencia, Madrid, Osaka, and Tokyo.