Born 1957 in Waterbury Ct. to Richard and Patricia Tata, Richard is a self-taught artist who graduated from Waterbury State Technical College with a degree in chemical engineering, and later continued his education at the University of New Haven.

His memories of growing up were always centered on art and science. Richard never really had any idols per se. However, Albert Einstein and Leonardo DaVinci fascinated him. He would read everything he could get his hands on about the both of them. Always with a pencil in hand, if he wasn’t drawing pictures of people or trees then he was designing something. As he entered high school and started to think about college and a career, his interest in art slowly faded away.

It wasn’t until 2003, that Richard started to draw again and after some encouragement from friends, he began to seriously focus on his artwork. It was around this time that he was introduced to Indian Orchard Mills; an old mill, that in more recent times has been converted to house studios, in which local artists can practice their trade. After a couple of hours roaming in and out of the studios at the mill and talking to various artists, he was hooked and signed up for his first art lesson with one of the resident artists. In the fall of 2004 Richard moved into his own studio and titled it The Naked Turtle. He can be found there almost every night after he gets off from work and most weekends.

Richard considers himself a new artist and in an experimental stage when it comes to different media. Just recently (2007) he started experimenting with oils, whereas in the past, Conte’ crayon and watercolor were common for him.

The works you can view in his online gallery are a result of the past three years he has spent painting at nights in his studio at the mills.