Richard O’Russa was born and raised in Peoria, IL. He received a BFA in painting from The University of Iowa in 1988 and moved to New York City soon afterward. His focus, since then, has been on painting, drawing and the book arts. These three separate media have generated distinct bodies of work exploring the inferences of abstraction in the external visual world. He has exhibited in the United States, with work held in the New Orleans Museum of Art, Tulane University, The Center for Book Arts and in private collections, and he has collaborated with many writers and visual artists including Alice Notley, Julie Patton, Edwin Torres, Anselm Berrigan, Clark Coolidge, Karoline Schleh, CAConrad, and others.