Artist Bio & Statement

In the early 1980s, ROGER RICCO established one of the first galleries in New York devoted entirely to American Folk, Self-Taught and Outsider Art. He teaches and speaks across the country on creativity and art in general as well as teaching at New York's School of Visual Arts. He has in recent years become known as an authority on artists with Autism. Ricco is presently co-owner of Ricco/Maresca gallery, located in New York City's Chelsea gallery district.

Roger Ricco is also an artist. Awarded the prestigious Rome Prize (Prix d'Rome) in painting while still studying fine art at the University of Wisconsin, Ricco has continued to develop his own work in both painting and photography. In the last five years, he has devoted his attention to a body of photo works that have caught the attention of curators and galleries both in the US and abroad. His show of painterly C-prints at Sara Tecchia Roma New York is his first in New York.


Artist Statement

My two new series, Night Sets and Winter Works are created within carefully constructed tabletop "sets". In both bodies of work, the subjects are "found objects" from my studio in Woodstock, NY. Winter Works focuses more on nature and uses frosted glass in the set, whereas Night Sets concentrates more on the dramatic with its painted background.

I look to observe the small, sometimes forgotten things in nature, and photograph them within the new world, and new environment, of the set. What I chose to place in each set are objects that are seemingly ordinary but are transformed by the space and the light around them. I rarely have any idea beforehand what the lens will capture, but part of the excitement of the photographs is their spontaneity of subject. By creating a type of diorama, each object becomes something different from itself, interacting within a controlled microcosmic landscape.

My primary background in art is as a painter, which is clearly reflected in my photographs. Often people remark how painterly they are, even insisting that they aren't photographs at all. However, the painterly influence is only manifested through the created environment of the sets.