Johnson County Artist Featured At Liberty Center with ‘Hydrokinetics’ Show

“HydroKinetics” featuring the artwork of Richard Monson (pronounced Munson) is now on display in downtown Sedalia at the Hayden Liberty Center, 111 W, 5th Street.

An artist reception was held Thursday in the gallery, where Richard and his wife Joyce greeted art lovers from 5 to 7 p.m. His acrylic-based art will remain on display through Oct. 28. There is no charge to view his artwork.

Monson explained the idea behind his work to KSIS.

“It's a process that I developed where I paint on glass, then once I get a layer built up, it'll peel off the glass. Then they get bounded on a panel after that,” Monson explained.

When asked how long he's been creating his own particular brand of art, Monson replied “Quite a while,” he said with a smile.

“Not constantly, but periodically,” Monson further explained, “because it's a slow process, mostly dying time.”

The artist, who lives in rural Johnson County, noted that this show is a retrospective, with artwork dating back to the early 70s, with just one piece produced this year, he said.

Monson pointed out that his other passion is oil painting. Perhaps that could be his featured artwork at a future show at Liberty Center.

Mixing two media such as oil and acrylics “really doesn't work very well,” Monson explained. “So I asked myself, what is acrylics' big strength? Well it's adhesiveness. Tenacity. It's very strong paint. So what use can you make of that? Well, pull it off of the glass.”

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Monson said he is probably the only artist creating this particular type of acrylic art.

“I did hear of someone who was pulling them off and putting them on canvas. So I tried that and didn't like the way it worked.

Monson's work is very abstract, or “non-objective” meaning you make of it what you see.

“Like the one in the middle there. I decided I was going to make a painting that was not attractive,” he laughed. “I did that one, and it didn't come off the glass very good, and like I said, I was wanting to do something kind of raunchy. So I called it “Covid 19.”

Monson explained the title of his show – “Hyrdo, meaing liquid. And kinetics, meaning motion. Exploration is what it is, primarily. There's no end to what you can come up with, with the process.”

All of Monson's work on display at the Liberty Center are for sale. Call 827-3228 for more information.