Richard “Ricky” Armendariz, born in 1969 in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, grew up in a region that significantly influenced his artistic, aesthetic, and conceptual ideas. He creates images that blend cultural, biographical, and art historical references, which are carved and burned into the surfaces of paintings, drawings, and woodblocks. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1995 and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999. Currently, Armendariz is a full professor at The School of Art at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where he teaches painting and drawing. In 2008, he received the Artpace Supplemental Travel Grant to fund his trip to Mexico City. In 2013, he participated as an artist-in-residence at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany, and in 2018 and 2022, he stayed at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Village, Colorado. In 2017, he became the first artist-in-residence at the DoSeum in San Antonio, Texas. His work has been exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, the Dallas Contemporary, the Contemporary at Bluestar in San Antonio, and the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin. His international exhibitions include “Liminal Space” at the DMZ Museum in South Korea (2018), “Common Wounds” in Bethlehem and Tel Aviv (2005), and “New Prints” at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany (2013). He also participated in Texas Contemporary Art at Lalit Kala Academy and the National Academy of Art in New Delhi, India (2015). His work is part of the permanent collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, McNay Art Museum, Ruby City, Blanton Museum, Denver Art Museum, Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Bush International Airport Houston Art Collection, and the Cheech Marin Collection at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California. Future projects include a commissioned large-scale carved oil painting for the new Texas Cavaliers Education Center at The Alamo, which will depict the history of San Antonio through the lens of Texas independence, scheduled to open in Spring 2026.