OG is a slang term that literally means “original gangster.” It also is short for “original.” It is a term of maximum respect, denoting someone who is a seminal figure, someone who was around at the beginning of something significant. 

Richard “Dick” Carter is OG. In fact, you can call him OA — original artist. 

Carter, whose show “The Ukiyo-E Bunkers” will be celebrated tonight at Hexton Gallery from 5-7 p.m., is a direct link to modern Aspen’s ultimate OA, Herbert Bayer. Bayer helped create the Aspen Institute’s campus and provided the visual embodiment to the Aspen Idea of mind, body and spirit. 

Carter moved to Aspen in 1971 and it wasn’t long before he landed a job as an apprentice for Bayer. He worked with Bayer as a painting assistant for six years, also helping with architectural drawings and many other tasks including printmaking, tapestries and exhibition design. 

“Bayer was an artist but he was a very buttoned-up person and I learned early how to take care of my inventory and catalogue all my work,” Carter said in a recent interview at Hexton Gallery. “That was a good organizational tool that paid dividends down the road for me as a professional artist with 55 years of inventory. 

“It was enlightening to watch a professional artist every day. I’d get to work at 9 a.m. Bayer was already there working and I left at 5 p.m. and he was still working. He put in long days for a guy in his 70s. He was a prominent guy and there were always people visiting and I watched him manage all that and I got to meet a lot of interesting people. I had a barn in the West End that I used as a studio to make art. It was a very productive period for me.”

Carter also is one of the founders of the Aspen Art Museum. In 1975, he, Laura Thorne and Diane Lewy started the Aspen Arts Festival. They held early exhibitions at the Aspen Institute. Carter used to pass the old 1885 hydroelectric power plant on North Mill Street every day and he came up with the idea of establishing a permanent exhibition space in that building. 

The city of Aspen had recently acquired it and in 1977 the Aspen Center for the Visual Arts was incorporated. In 1979, it held its first exhibitions in the renovated building. In 1984, the Center for Visual Arts changed its name to the Aspen Art Museum.

All the while, Carter, who is primarily a painter, was making his own art and exhibited it in solo and group exhibitions across galleries, museums and universities all over the world.  

Carter’s new show focuses on his bunker drawings in which he reimagines 18th and 19th century Japanese Ukiyo-e woodlock prints with finely detailed pencil drawings in which he incorporates the motif of a red bunker into every piece.

“This idea of a bunker, a red castle with a tiny window, started during COVID because people were bunkering up, they were in their houses and they were isolating,” Carter said. “The idea of the bunker as an architectural form became a place of strength and defense. In a lot of ways, it became an important thing to me so I started putting it in different pieces of art.

“I started by making super-saturated vivid colors that were very psychedelic. I was drawing volcanoes and rockets coming from out of space. They were very volatile situations but the bunkers always survived.” 

After that initial burst of inspiration, Carter had the idea to put the bunkers into replications of Ukiyo prints, as he had a collection of them that started when he received one as a gift from Aspen collector and art enthusiast John Powers.

“I wanted the drawings to be recognizable as these classic pieces of art but I inserted bunkers in each one. This was called the ‘floating world’ in Japan for 200 years as pleasure and culture were very high in their priorities, because the idea was that the world is temporary so while you are here you should enjoy the physical and cultural aspects of life.”

Carter hopes that people take away an appreciation of the classic Japanese art and see it in a new way. 

“I hope people can get the metaphor of the bunker as a positive subject going through all kinds of madness, insanity and humor in the topsy-turvy world of our current time,” he said.

“You always want people to like and appreciate your work,” Carter added. “I’ve made over 70 drawings in this series. This is a result of over a year’s worth of work. It’s very gratifying to finally share it.”