Rick Midler is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY, whose work is deeply inspired by nature and personal connection. While living in the city, he often finds solace in quiet trails, meditating near waterfalls, and watching clouds drift and dissolve. Midler began his artistic journey as an oil painter before transitioning to brush and ink. In 2020, he embraced collage, incorporating cloud-shaped elements and decorative papers from around the world—each piece carrying a unique narrative about the love of family. Midler's creative process blends memory, imagination, and a calligraphic approach to paper cutting, resulting in work that finds harmony in contrast, rhythm in repetition, and beauty in imperfection. With a global exhibition history, Midler has collaborated with organizations like the National Audubon Society and was named Art on Paper NY’s 2024 solo artist. @rickmidlerstudios
Reflecting on your childhood in New Jersey, how did it mold your approach to art? I was born in Clifton, New Jersey, and was part of an enormous family, with dozens of cousins living a few miles away. I was very shy as a child, but unconditional love and acceptance from my relatives made me feel alive. My great-grandmother was the matriarch of the neighborhood, and everyone in town would stop by her home on Sundays, eating, joking, and telling stories about their lives. The patterned papers I use evoke the wallpaper from that era, and evolved as I thought about how familiar patterns evoke the same feeling of nostalgia around the world. At a young age, my Aunt Norma, who was a mystic, would take me aside when I was overwhelmed and would guide me in meditation practice and discussions about spiritual realms. I kept returning to the notion that we are like clouds. We form, change shape, drift, become one with others, and eventually vanish. I began creating art that gives me the feeling of change and impermanence.
When did you first fall in love with art and realize you wanted to be an artist? For you, what is the importance of the arts? I believe everyone is creative. Living is a creative act. I found comfort in art classes in school and doodled all the time. I just never stopped. The first artist that I connected with was Salvador Dali. He was silly and deep, and his worlds were like nothing I saw on TV. I wanted to walk through his paintings. I knew that art was important if it could make people feel this way. I never tried to draw anything specific. I improvised with a pen in a sketchbook and was always amazed by what came out. You can see something in yourself through a drawing you made that you've been unaware of or were unwilling to confront. It was total freedom and self-examination. I could be silly and deep and find pure acceptance in myself.
What does your typical day in the studio look like? Walk us through your studio and your most used materials and tools. I start by cleaning and cleansing the space with sage. As I let the smoke gently caress every nook in the studio, I become aware of all its parts. I'll look through my sketchbooks for inspiration, find a panel or canvas, sketch the main idea onto a sheet of tracing paper on the substrate, and start looking through my flat files of sheets of decorative papers. They are labeled: Marbled + Delicate, Floral, Sparkle + Shiny, Full Pattern, and Solid. I'll cut small swatches from my stash and lay them over the tracing paper, deciding what colors, patterns, and textures I like for the base of the piece. I cut out my shapes and begin building the piece, layer on top of layer, thinking about balance, depth, and a push and pull of something representative and abstract. I play with the elements, moving them around for days, before I begin to make final choices based on sheer intuition.
What projects are you at work on at the moment? And what themes or ideas are currently driving your work? I have a 40 x 40 inch canvas that I intend to be a white and silver piece. I just finished a black and copper piece and am loving the results from a more monochromatic palate. I'm also working on my grandfather's record albums from the 1920s. I'm set to do an auction for The National Audubon Society of pieces I made using elements from an animated short film. And I'm working with interior designers, installing hand-cut murals using wallpaper. Right now, being in nature gives me peace and balance. I'm interested in how a wide view of a park camouflages its individual parts - it's a park until you focus on each individual element. Then you really begin to see the movement, the change, the impermanence.
What do you hope people feel when they experience your art? What are you trying to express? I hope people feel what I do when making the art. Peace, balance, joy, magic, love.
Which artists, past or present, would you like to meet? And why? Salvador Dali and I share the same birth date. His art grabbed me at a young age, and his energy would be so fun to be around. I think we would get along. Kandinski had a sense of animation in his work. He believed that colors and shapes possessed inherent expressive qualities and could be combined to create a visual language that resonated with the viewer's inner world. I'd like to meet Nick Cave, Takashi Murakami, and James Jean simply because their work is so playful and brings me to worlds I want to spend time in.
Do you draw inspiration from music, art, or other disciplines? I'm always listening to music in the studio, and it helps me stay in a positive frame of mind. I love My Morning Jacket, Beck, Ajeet, Trevor Hall, Eagles, Brian Eno's ambient tracks, and Zen Meditation or spa music.
A great thing about living in Brooklyn is… I walk through Prospect Park every day regardless of the weather - in blizzards, rain, and stifling heat. I love Brooklyn for our diverse community and our art scene but I also go upstate to the lake as much as I can.
Can you describe a project that challenged you creatively or emotionally—and how you worked through it? I was recently part of the London Collage Project hosted by Contemporary Collage Magazine. I worked alongside 17 collage artists, without my paper collection, using only what I found in London. I truly enjoyed seeing how others work and picked up tips and tricks along the way. But it was the first time that I struggled with my art. I was trying to do what I do at home in a situation that wasn't suited for it. I didn't fall in love with the papers I found, which is a big part of my work. The papers I use have to spark joy. The way I worked through it was with the support of the other artists in the residency and by taking meditation walks along the canal.
Tell us about important teachers/mentors/collaborators in your life. I met Mark Ryden and Gary Baseman at a function when I was a creative director in advertising. I had a black hardcover sketchbook where I would work out ideas for commercials. There were meeting notes, appointment reminders, and thumbnail sketches for concepts I was developing. I doodled characters in the margins. At the event, I found myself standing in a circle with a group of artists, all holding the same black hardcover sketchbook. They passed them around and showed each other their beautiful sketches - each page a masterpiece. I was asked to hand over mine, which I did reluctantly. Their disinterest grew with every page they turned. But Mark and Gary pointed out a few small doodles and told me that I was talented and that I should consider making art. The next day, I bought a second black hardcover sketchbook that would only be for my surrealist doodles and reserved the first for my advertising concepts and meeting notes. I carry a sketchbook everywhere to this day.
Sustainability in the art world is an important issue. Can you share a memory or reflection about the beauty and wonder of the natural world? Does being in nature inspire your art or your process? The beauty and wonder of the natural world are what drive my art these days. I used to draw from inward fears, insecurities, and sexual urges. Now, I sit in meditation near a stream or waterfall, and only after I walk away from the setting do I draw it from my memory, improvising and changing it, highlighting what I noticed most. I try to evoke the feeling of being in nature, noticing its movement in every piece.
AI is changing everything - the way we see the world, creativity, art, our ideas of beauty and the way we communicate with each other and our imaginations. What are your reflections about AI and technology? What is the importance of human art and handmade creative works over industrialized creative practices? Right now, AI can render an image that looks like a Rick Midler piece. That doesn’t worry me because one of the most important things about making art is making it with my hands. Touching the paper, feeling the glue. And the people who collect my art have one-of-a-kind pieces. I suppose one day soon AI could generate a piece like mine, along with 3D printing to give it the texture and layers similar to mine, but it won’t be made with papers that were made by artists, collected from places around the world.
Exploring ideas, art and the creative process connects me to… Exploring ideas, art, and the creative process connects me to love. Love for myself, love of my family, love of nature, love of other artists’ passion and commitment, love of mad-scientist "aha moments" and a profound love of the ability we all possess to create.
