About

Shoreline 40" x 52" o/c 2025
Nothing pleases me more than tending to the land outside my studio windows.
This stewardship involves keeping the field open by pulling out the countless small pines trees that keep popping up, trying to fill in the field.

I remove fallen trees, make walking paths, and build bird houses that have produced dozens of broods of Bluebirds, and Tree Swallows.
I walk the property and take note of trees varieties, the native plants fighting to survive. I see the property is today, what it used to be, and wonder what it might have been like 200 hundred years ago.
Or I might go two mile to the west and see the colors of the Big Lake, or how fast the spring leaves are popping out on the trees.

I take all of that observation, all of that looking, and I come back to my studio and make the paintings like you see here. I make paintings from memories of those walks, and those trees and birds, and the time spent tending to this land.

Richard Kooyman July 2025



Earning my MFA from Ohio State University I have been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Artist Grant, a Michigan Arts Council Grant, and The Michigan Governor’s Award in the Arts. I have also been an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, The Heliker- LaHotan Foundation, The Antico Borgo Finocchieto in Tuscany, and a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.


Why do I make paintings?

I believe making a work of art is still one of the most important personal, social, and political acts a person can do.

Studio Visits
If you would like to visit my and Melanie Parke’s studio and see the work in person please email- richardkooymanart@gmail.com

Shipping
Paintings can be professionally and safely shipped via UPS. Works too large to ship via UPS (over 48” x 52”) are securely crated and shipped FEDEX truck freight anywhere in the US.
Contact me about sending works on approval.