Richard Hricko (US)
Text/Translation GHA
The American artist Richard Hricko creates scenarios that seem to come from another dimension, from a decaying world. Vegetation has taken over everything. No other sign of life is present, and the artist frames with close-ups the new vegetal ruler. The technique he relies on, copperplate photogravure, allows for an extremely precise depiction of the subjects and of the stark effects of light and shade.
In Hricko’s artworks we see vegetal life entangling and wrapping itself up to create convoluted circular patterns. It grows all over the pictures, with its leaves, branches and flowers. The viewer, mesmerized, observes the ways in which the climbing plants strongly hold up to what they conquered. Indeed, they transmit the force and might of nature, their ability to slowly subjugate everything. This is why the beholder is left with a sense of both powerlessness and fascination.
Richard Hricko
From time to time, something is still distinguishable under the branches. It can be a mechanical instrument, a little sculpture, an architectural detail. They give glimpses of a disappeared world, and increase the mystery of the scenes. The total absence of colors, the dominance of black and white, create a melancholic atmosphere, somehow suspended. Here, the onlooker can quietly admire all the tiniest details, while losing in the images out of time and space.
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