Richard Sheehan

Light Beneath is a retrospective honoring the life and work of American landscape painter Richard Sheehan (1953 - 2006). The exhibition reintroduces a painter whose work balanced direct observation with an inventive approach to color, structure, and atmosphere.

Sheehan focused on bridges, overpasses, industrial corridors, roadside signage, and commercial architecture. Working directly from life, often outdoors in difficult conditions, he developed compositions that maintain a tension between abstraction and representation, painterly freedom and architectural precision. Often associated with artists such as Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud, he achieved energetically charged paintings from overlooked aspects of the American landscape. 

A defining body of work within the exhibition centers on paintings made beneath and around bridges, where Sheehan found expansive possibilities within human-created, functional spaces. Cropped tightly and constructed with a remarkable sensitivity, these works transform infrastructure and shadow into immersive fields of color and atmosphere.

Also on view are a selection of Sheehan's signage paintings, many presented publicly for the first time. Images of the visual language of Americana, commerce, and advertising, these works open a distinct thread of the artist's practice: a clear inquiry into the political and social structures that shape American life.