Rick Vian: What Carries Forward
Melannie Chard
Apr 12, 2026
I Wrote the Night, 2025 | Polyurethane and oil on canvas, 36 × 48 inches
Rick Vian's solo exhibition, The Rapture of Understanding Nothing opens next week on Friday, April 17th. Rick and I have been working together for several years and after numerous conversations and visits to the studio during the creation of this new body of paintings, I've been considering how his work is connected to an earlier moment in Detroit and the artists working in and around the Cass Corridor in the 1970s. Artists such as Jim Chatelain, John Egner, Brenda Goodman, Bradley Jones, Ann Mikolowski, Gordon Newton, and Michael Luchs were formative in Detroit's art scene in the 1970s and Rick's work is akin to this movement through a shared approach. It's not referential, however, it's associated in a way that is direct and grounded in the act of making.
Exploding Dream Objects, 2025 | Polyurethane and oil on canvas, 60 × 48 inches
Rick has been making art in Detroit for decades. He's been painting and teaching in the Detroit area since the early 1970s, studied at the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State, and was active in the early days of the Cass Corridor, exhibiting at the Willis Gallery in 1974. When I look at this exhibition compared to earlier work it's clear that the paintings are not reaching back toward history but coming out of it. What he is painting now is so confident, focused and immersive that the pieces really need to be experienced in person to gain the full perspective of movement and form.
Rick Vian in his studio
In Rick's previous exhibition in 2022, The Growth Habit, forms were held in place by a tighter geometry making the work feel very anchored. In these newer paintings, the composition begins to open. Lines extend and overlap more freely, and the surface becomes even more active. The canvas holds the marks but does not fully resolve them. The resulting compositions feel less contained but more continuous as they just keep unfolding.
Enthralled my Wounded Eye, 2026 | Polyurethane and oil on canvas, 72 × 60 inches
What you get is a raw, insistent energy in the paintings. Lines push, loop, and recalibrate so that you can almost see the composition being worked out in real time. Forms build and collapse but are always held together by a strong internal structure. Rick creates a history on the surface of each piece. It is scratched, layered and reworked in a way that allows you to feel the decisions and the immense experience behind them.
Rick Vian in his studio
What's interesting is how closely this aligns with Vian's own thinking. He says that he starts from chaos. Marking the canvas without a fixed image in mind and then works his way toward order, pulling structure out of what initially feels unresolved. It's a process of constant revision. Vian is not setting out to depict an image…he's discovering one. That tension between chaos and control is where the work captures you. And it's a familiar feeling. The Cass Corridor artists approached painting in a similar way: using what was available, letting material lead, while allowing the work to remain open rather than overly resolved. Vian's work doesn't necessarily look back at that moment in Detroit's artistic history but he does continue it.
The Rapture of Understanding Nothing, 2026 | Polyurethane and oil on canvas, 36 × 60 inches
The exhibition opens next week and we will also be hosting an intimate artist talk and studio visit with Rick and Sue Carmen-Vian, Rick's wife and an incredible artist herself on May 3rd. The talk will be led by Sue and take place in the studio around the paintings that would not fit in the gallery but that continue the conversation. We hope you can join us for one or both events. You can learn more at the link.
As always, thank you for reading.
See You Soon!