April 30, 2005 in Voices

Artist living out his dream, creating lyrical abstractions

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Holly Pickett photo

Ralph Busch works on a piece called “Flood,” inspired by a hurricane he saw in Florida.
(Full-size photo)

Imagine an artist’s loft. You may have seen them on television – nestled in a big city, high ceilings, bare floors, and artwork, in various stages of completion, adorning the walls. This is the kind of space that Ralph Busch paints in.

Except his space isn’t in a big city but sitting on 51/2 acres in Otis Orchards.

Busch, 57, specializes in large paintings for large spaces, “in order,” said Busch, “to engage a person’s peripheral vision.”

He calls his style “lyrical abstraction.” Though his pieces might seem to be abstract, there is rhyme and reason to every stroke. Busch uses many layers of paint to give the illusion of depth.

“It is all about nature,” he said, “and natural phenomenon.”

Taking photos from the computer, Busch manipulates them by zooming in or out and lifting out the image. Examples of this could be the intricate spots on a frog or sand dunes on Mars. The latter were made available to Busch after he received the rights from NASA to incorporate their images into paintings.

Using a computer, a digital projector and his vision, Busch projects photos onto a canvas and paints over time. The pieces become alive with profundity and movement.

With titles such as “Storm” and “Flood,” his work imitates the happenings for which they are named in a lyrical and creative manner.

Many of his pieces have found homes with collectors that include the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and RCA Communications Center in Cherry Hill, N.J. He has also won numerous awards, such as funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Busch chose art early on. With a grandfather who painted and an inspirational high school art teacher, he decided that art was a good way of escaping from peer pressure. “I was competing with myself rather than others,” he said, “and that’s a much healthier place to be coming from.”

Busch earned a degree from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and was a resident of the SoHo artist neighborhood, where he lived and painted for 10 years.

After many years of standing in long lines, he decided to go west, and a straight line took him to Spokane. “To be a successful artist, it doesn’t matter where you work,” he said, “and the space here was very affordable.”

Busch was a fine arts teacher for seven years in Spokane and surrounding areas. He also served as outreach coordinator for the Spokane Arts Commission.

One year ago, he started a business called Ralph the Artist. Currently, he is working on a Web site, which will have photos of his work and biographical material.

Busch has been an artist for more than 30 years. “It makes sense,” said Busch, “to do what makes you happy. I am living my dream.”

To Busch, being an artist is a responsibility.

“It is,” he said, “both a terrible struggle and magical to reach for, especially given the complex, fragile and endangered state of the contemporary world we live in.”

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