About

  • Often, when we shine a flashlight into the dark we still can’t see what’s coming next, and there is nothing more terrifying than the unknown. As we wander, sometimes we find ourselves in life changing situations, confronted with the unknown. Other times, in the sweetest moments, we look around and realize we’ve arrived in a place we’ve been searching for all along, but didn’t know how to find.

    Using mixed reality strategies to spatialize stories in physical environments, my practice seeks to “make room” for the stories we had always dreamed to live, the characters we never expected to meet, and the love we had always hoped to find.

  • he/him

    Richard is a mixed-reality installation (or spatial) artist whose work uses cutting edge, real-time tools to focus on finding touchpoints between building and art practices. Through projection mapping, animation and interactive environment design, his work uses teal-time tools to reframe the designed world as a collection of portrait backdrops, which have the capacity to move lithely with culture and identity. Richard has been recognized with thesis prizes for his work in both the Masters of Architecture and Master of Science in Design Theory and Pedagogy at SCI-Arc for his continuing curiosity in the representation of queerness and personal experience in shared designed environments.

    He has a cumulative ten years of design experience in architecture and allied art practices, has served as a Fulbright research Fellow, has served as faculty at SCI-Arc, worked with the renowned artist Analia Saban on a winning proposal for a large scale public art installation in Century City (CA), and is the founder of his own experimental design practice called Brain Bath.

    Richard is currently practicing in Denver Colorado and is exploring his art practice in the context of immersive and interactive installations, production design and animation in short films, and mixed reality stage design in theater. He has recently worked as an exhibition designer and curator with SCI-Arc as assistant to the Graduate Thesis Coordinator and organizer of the summer program “Space Lab,” an immersive media artist for theatrical productions with Inner City Arts in Los Angeles, and a projection and animation designer with the Denver Theater District.

Richard Mapes artist statement, about and bio