Blue Marble, 18×18 inches, oil on board, 2024

Final October, I had the pleasure of assembly Marie Riccio at her solo exhibition, Nonetheless Echoes, at The Portray Heart and the Small Works Invitational at First Avenue Gallery. Riccio’s work drew my consideration for the sophistication of her compositions and refined but highly effective use of colour as tone that brings an distinctive depth and nuance to her trendy still-life setups of commonplace objects, remodeling them into topics of contemplation and aesthetic significance. This capacity to raise the bizarre to one thing profound by way of the formal language of portray prompted me to ask her for an interview in order that we may study her inventive methodology and background.

Riccio obtained her B.F.A from SUNY Buy and her MFA from the College of Pennsylvania, the place she studied with Neil Welliver. Her curatorial tasks embrace nonetheless life group displays at each The Washington Studio Faculty, DC and at VisArts Rockville, MD. She has exhibited throughout New York, Maryland, and the Washington DC space and is represented by First Avenue Gallery, NYC and TAG/The Artists Gallery, Frederick, MD.

Excellent Diamond, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2022

Larry Groff:   How has your method to still-life portray developed since your early days as an artist? Are there any pivotal moments or influences which have formed this evolution?

Marie Riccio:  Like most artists, I’ve all the time liked drawing and spent a lot of my childhood drawing in my room. My love of colour has all the time been current, and I’ve reminiscences of colours and the way they made me really feel. Nevertheless, I didn’t begin to paint till after I left undergrad.

As an undergrad pupil at SUNY Buy, there have been two courses that basically made an excellent impression on me. One was an artwork historical past class taught by artwork historian Irving Sandler, creator of The Triumph of American Portray, who every Wednesday took us into NYC to the galleries. He launched us to many gallery homeowners and artists and made visiting galleries much less intimidating. That have opened me as much as a world of artwork past what I noticed within the outsized e-book part of my native library. The opposite was a category based mostly on the e-book, Interplay of Colour, taught by Sewell Sillman, a pupil of Joseph Albers, that I took as an undergrad after which once more as a grad pupil. The category modified my understanding and consciousness of colour and began me on the trail I’m nonetheless on right this moment. Nevertheless, it was in graduate college on the College of Pennsylvania that I made the best change.

I arrived at Penn as an summary painter, and Neil Welliver inspired me to have a look at my environment and paint from life. I began with the objects in my studio. These had been my first still-life work. I may see colours that I couldn’t think about when portray abstractly. It was all very thrilling.

I additionally began portray landscapes throughout that point and proceed to take action, however the nonetheless life is the place I really feel I can discover colour in the best way that almost all pursuits me. I’ve continued to be an observational painter working in oil and typically gouache.

Falling Crimson, 30×30 inches, oil on linen, 2020

LG:  How has your early expertise as an summary painter influenced your present work?

Marie Riccio:  A number of years in the past, I began revisiting my summary work roots inside my still-life work. That curiosity has developed into evolving concepts about how gentle is described. My ideas about gentle could be described in two other ways; the sunshine inside flat shapes of colour that radiate gentle (from my summary roots) and the sunshine described by rendering worth (realism).

I’m impressed by painters who describe gentle in these other ways, particularly Antonio Lopez Garcia’s beautiful capacity to create kind and environment by way of worth, Hans Hofmann’s summary brush strokes and flat rectangles of colour that waffle out and in of area, and Vermeer’s fantastically rendered tender, heat directional gentle. I additionally discovered inspiration in Joseph Albers’s Homage to the Sq., the place colours radiate the sunshine of various levels, and bouncing colour performs within the area, Fairfield Porter’s flat colour shapes describing gentle, Euan Uglow’s colour and shapes describing kind, and Morandi’s beautiful, refined colour and compositions. I’m fascinated by the potential for having each approaches coexisting in my work.

Golden Ribbon, 10×10 inches, oil on board, 2022

Half Circle, 10×10 inches, oil on paper, 2024

LG:   In your still-life work, you usually depict generally used still-life objects akin to brightly coloured backgrounds utilizing material and comparable supplies, pots, and vases, varied pure types, ribbons, and different objects that present construction and a foundation for colour harmonies. Are you able to stroll us by way of the method of choosing these things? Do you search for particular traits, or is it extra of an intuitive alternative?

Touring Crimson, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   I normally start my work with an intuitive method. I’ve still-life objects scattered round my studio and can search for one thing that catches my eye; a colour, a form, or the curve of a bowl. I place the article on the desk and begin to add extra objects. Slowly I start to see a colour tone develop and can add extra objects to assist emphasize that colour temper. I then begin to visualize the composition and the way I need the attention to maneuver inside the portray.

The addition of ribbons, sticks, marbles, and so forth reinforces these compositional choices. I consider which parts will play the dominant function within the composition, the objects that I need to steal the present. I additionally add patterned material or strong items of coloured paper to activate the area.

An alternate method for me is to begin from some inspiration that has shaped in my ideas. That may be a colour mixture I’ve been daydreaming about or the re-creation of a composition from a murals that impressed me. For instance, whereas observing Wayne Thiebaud’s San Francisco portray, Two Streets Down, I used to be intrigued by how he positioned the horizon line in direction of the highest of the portray, how the realm above attracts you again into that area, and the way the realm beneath the horizon seems flat. This composition influenced my portray Touring Crimson.

Cityscape, 12×24 inches, oil on board, 2020

Younger Love, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2020

LG:   Are you primarily thinking about a extra modernist formalist method to portray, versus an expressionistic one? In that case, why?

Marie Riccio:   I don’t normally embrace objects in my work that might offer you a way of a specific time. For instance, you in all probability gained’t see a trendy piece of clothes or references to popular culture. That’s to not say that they wouldn’t creep right into a portray at instances, although they might be utilized in a extra modernist method; for his or her form, sample, or colour fairly than to supply a direct narrative high quality.

I began out as an summary painter, and my curiosity in shapes of colour interacting with adjoining colours has carried over into my still-life work. After I start a portray, my contact is expressionistic and open as I draw and paint colour notes on the floor with my brush and seek for the location of the weather. This expressive search begins the method of connecting to what I’m and finally turns into buried as I work my manner by way of the portray to a refinement of the principle pursuits I’m after.

Circle Play, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Introducing Soy, 10×8 inches, oil on board, 2023

LG:   You’ve talked about in your web site that your still-life work typically reveal private meanings from the method itself. Is there ever a beginning narrative, or does every part evolve extra organically together with the portray?

Marie Riccio:    Every bit begins with a proper method with none intent in direction of a specific that means or narrative. The work adjustments by way of the method. I add issues, take away objects, repaint an object a bit to the left or to the best, making choices to reach at a portray that feels proper, balanced.

This evolving course of may be very meditative for me. I get misplaced in thought and really feel my manner by way of the portray course of. As I spend time with the portray, I develop a relationship with it, and the objects start to tackle private qualities. I see the objects interacting with one another, and their surroundings and characters announce their presence to me. This typically occurs by way of their proximity to one another, their interacting colour reflections, or how an object dominates its environment.

Amongst the Turmoil, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2022

When I’ve a way of what the portray is about for me, I’m able to identify the portray, and I do know I’m carried out. I don’t count on the viewer to know what that that means is, however I hope they get a way that one thing is occurring within the portray. For instance, in Amongst the Turmoil, once I began this portray, I used to be within the formal concept of enjoying with distinction: two very darkish objects that might join as one form and contrasted by translucent white tissue paper. Throughout the course of, the tissue paper was reshaped right into a curve that leads your eye to the darkish bottles. The curves of the patterned purple material had been moved to echo the alternative curve, a mirrored image of the tissue paper reinforcing the composition. A yellow ribbon was added to emphasise the curves within the portray, creating a way of chaos.

Throughout the time this portray was painted, our two kids had moved dwelling from school, and my husband was working at dwelling on account of Covid shutdowns. None of us had been very glad being restricted to the home, and my husband and I needed to stick collectively and maintain down the fort throughout all of the emotional turmoil. For me, this situation is mirrored on this portray. A lot of my work have significant private tales related to them.

LG:   What are you able to say in regards to the emotional qualities of your still-life work, and the way does this relate to your compositional decisions? Are there specific preparations of shapes that you simply discover extra conducive to expression?

Cuddled in a Dream, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   The emotional qualities of my work are expressed by way of each colour and composition. Totally different colours and colour mixtures, refined colour adjustments, and arduous and tender edges create the emotional high quality of the work.

The emotional content material of a composition additionally considerations relationships, how patterns are repeated, how connections are made, and the way totally different types work together. A vase might contact its neighbor or seem alone and remoted from the others. A material might cuddle a bowl, comforting it from different unsettling parts.

Stripes, 10×10 inches, oil on board, 2023

Yellow Flutter, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2022

Seesaw, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

LG:   In your still-life work, you’ve described a stability between the solidity of objects and the ‘chaotic aspect of life,’ like unraveling ribbons or crooked sticks. How do you resolve on the stability between these parts in a composition? Is there a symbolic significance to this interaction in your work?

Marie Riccio:   When my life feels chaotic, I search consolation in work with a way of stillness. They assist floor me, and I discover the quiet stillness of a portray to be calming. I’m drawn to the grounded construction of issues. Typically, when I’m portray, I really feel objects from the within out, as if I’m inside them pushing outwards and dealing at understanding how a lot area they’re occupying, how shut they’re to their neighbors, and that their toes are strong on the bottom.

These grounded objects are made up of ovals and straight traces. Ribbons, crooked sticks, and flowing cloth aren’t as straightforward to grasp. They’ve the capability to vary and are unsettling. They’re the spontaneity of life, the unpredictability, the enjoyable, and I want stability to get pleasure from that unpredictability.

Loopy Instances, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2020

I usually begin by inserting the secure objects first, and once I really feel comfy with their placement, I add extra fluid objects to assist add life to the composition and preserve the picture energetic. In my portray Loopy Instances, the three centered objects had been organized first. I took care of their proximity to one another. As soon as established, the vines, ribbons, and flowers had been added to precise the whirlwind of craziness I used to be feeling from what was taking place on the planet on the time.

LG:   Colour and composition play important roles in your work. Are you able to focus on how you employ these parts to boost the interplay between objects in your still-life setups? How do you resolve on the colour palette for a specific piece?

The Valley, 24×24 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   As I deliver objects collectively, I start to push the colour temper in a route so a dominate colour household begins to emerge. To ensure that a robust colour hue to have life I discover it must be positioned in an surroundings of greys or neutrals that I name “no-name colours” or “bending colours” as a result of they’ve extra altering energy. They alter their colour relying on what they’re subsequent to. I discover these colours thrilling to color since they contain quite a lot of colour mixing and fine-tuning, add environment to the surroundings, and improve the stronger colour hues. Typically, they’re impartial colour objects, ribbons, or cloth. They can be current in shadows or inside the altering values of a component.

I steadily wish to have an object or two that stands out from the group and the general colour tone. For me, these are the objects whose colour “sings” within the portray. This may typically be a colour that’s complimentary to the general colour tone or that stands out by way of its worth, placement, or measurement. For instance, within the portray The Valley the orange vase in direction of the center sings amongst the numerous no-name colours.

With composition, I’m delicate to how the objects group collectively, the areas between them, and the way they create connecting traces. I begin to discover repeating angles, traces, and round rhythms. I may match to emphasise facets of the evolving construction by tweaking the composition to deliver it to a stronger decision.

Hidden Blues, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2024

By way of and Behind, 12×12 inches, oil on board, 2023

In search of Shelter, 20×20 inches, oil on board, 2023

LG:   You’ve described your method to nonetheless life as a technique of discovery, whereas panorama portray is extra reductive. Are you able to elaborate on the variations in your inventive course of between these two forms of work?

Marie Riccio:    I method a nonetheless life as a clear slate. I get to decide on the objects, the colours, the composition. I direct the method from begin to end which may be very difficult however matches my persona since I get pleasure from drawback fixing.

I are likely to favor a tabletop which acts as a stage for my nonetheless life. As I prepare objects, I take into consideration how they may join with one another in addition to the area round them. I orchestrate what leads the attention into the image airplane from the wings, starting when all of the actors are on the stage. Typically the characters transfer round and are available and go till the portray is full.

After I go exterior to color the panorama, I usually see chaos in entrance of me that I need to relax. So, I begin by lowering what I’m . I group areas of worth and get rid of what is just not wanted to create the portray I’m after. It is a reductive course of. In a manner, I discover it very releasing as a result of the setup is there earlier than me. This observe additionally helps to maintain me open to new potentialities within the studio.

Each of those approaches are useful to my portray observe.

LG:   Discovering the random and surprising in nature–by way of a perceptual course of–can deliver new life to a portray. Please share an instance of a second in your portray that unexpectedly introduced new realization and energy to a portray. 

Orange You Nice, 16×16 inches, oil on board, 2023

Marie Riccio:   After I arrange the nonetheless life for the portray Orange You Nice, my preliminary intention was to play with the 2 colours of orange tissue paper within the background. What I didn’t count on was what the impact can be on the opposite parts within the portray. I noticed orange all over the place. On the blue-green bottle, the tabletop, the brown ribbon. The nonetheless life was bathed in a tender orange gentle introduced out much more by the blue/grey area underneath the desk.

It’s the technique of portray that excites me; noticing the unseen, drawback fixing, all coupled with interior emotions. Visible language is woven into my life, and I work at portray the work that join the making of artwork to life with the hope that the outcome will join with others.