CHROMOPHILIA is an exciting new exhibition by Bryan Ricci showing at TW Fine Art this month.

Bryan creates paintings using formal techniques in which he utilises colour theory, composition and other classical methodology to create metaphors through the application of paint. He has established a distinctive process of painting on unprimed raw linen with colours created through a mixture of pure pigment and various binders to achieve a multitude of surfaces and textures.

The paint application process serves as a metaphorical representation of the way memory is constructed. The raw linen represents Ricci’s lived experience. The first coat of paint, which he describes as a translucent fluid-like application, stands for reminiscence, with an opportunity for the unconscious mode to seep through. The fluid-like application itself stands for the dichotomy between the unconscious and conscious modes of remembrance, which is slippery or elusive on its own.

The paint that is applied over the first layer represents a further recall of the experience. At some point through a repetition of examining the experience a new memory is created or is pushed to a point where the original experience is almost completely repressed. At a certain point during the process, the painting becomes the priority and what remains is the idealised version of it. The end product is an abstract painting, which is what you’ll see at CHROMOPHILIA.

Bryan Ricci graduated from SUNY Purchase College in New York in 2000, earning a BFA in Painting. He moved to Los Angeles to attend Otis College of Art and Design, earning a MFA in 2012. Bryan has exhibited expansively in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Pennsylvania and internationally in Seoul, Korea, Xinzheng, China, as well as here in Australia.