Richard Givens is a Baltimore visual artist who started hand-painted, geometric and illustrative designs in the 1970s. Givens started his artistic pursuits during his lunch breaks working as a draftsman in the engineering department at the Bethlehem Steel Co. and had contemporary artists such as Pete Max and M.C. Escher in mind.

During the economic downturn of 1975, Givens found more free time when he, like many others, were laid off. From then on, he painted at his kitchen table, creating a series of works on illustration board made first with flat latex paint. When this process and materials did not satisfy him, he moved onto using gloss enamel house paint, of which the fumes would later come to affect his health.

The majority of the work was completed between 1976 and 1979. After this time, Givens stopped making art. Four decades later, when COVID-19 hit and the world virtually stopped, he began working on art again to avoid any psychological spiral but rather than working with paint, he started utilizing digital technologies to create. With around 200 designs that had, at that point, only existed in his head, Givens began giving them form.