Giulia Ricci

Giulia Ricci

Orientation / Disorientation no.6. 2013

Archival oil-based ink on paper, hand-made unique print made with rubber stamps

Orientation / Disorientation no.7. 2013

Archival oil-based ink on paper, hand-made unique print made with rubber stamps

I make finely detailed geometrical abstract work using a variety of hand-made and digital processes with a diverse range of materials, primarily pigments on paper; drawing always underpins my practice across the various media and surfaces I work on. I am interested in the haptic quality of geometric patterns and I aim to translate the experience of tactility into a visual image which is flat and has spatial qualities at the same time. I am interested in the relationship between ornament and abstraction and the references of my practice are objects like textiles, bricks, tiles, mosaics and various other artefacts relating to architecture and the built environment. Therefore the seemingly abstract nature of the work is only partially so, because the patterns I use are thought in relation to physical objects. 

The basic structure of my work consists of grids of isosceles right triangles. I arrange, modify and distort their configuration using repetition, rotation, mirroring and other compositional methods that are typical of design and ornamentation. The relationship with the space around it is very important, even though my work tends to be flat and is concerned with surface. I am interested in creating multiple focal points of view in the work to elicit a tactile and spatial response from the audience; scale and viewpoint play an important role in this, and the perception of my work can change significantly depending on the viewer’s proximity and their angle in relation to the surface. 

The pieces all present repeated patterns in which irregular shifts in the orientation of the repeated unit create disconnections and break the regularity of the pattern.

Giulia Ricci was born in Bagnacavallo, Italy, in 1976 and lives in London. She gained a degree in History of Art from the University of Bologna and trained in fine arts at Accademia di Belle Arti of Bologna (Italy) and at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. She has exhibited internationally including, in Italy, at MACC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Calasetta, Sardinia, and MAR in Ravenna, in Germany at Fruehsorge Contemporary Drawings, Berlin, SKK Soest and at Kunstverein Eislingen; in the UK at the Royal Academy of Arts, Blyth Gallery Imperial College and The Drawing Room, all London. Giulia has completed commissions for permanent artworks for several clients including Crown Estate, Facebook, The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and Queen Mary University. Her is represented by Bartha Contemporary and she is an associate lecturer in Drawing and Conceptual Practice at UAL.

@giuliariccistudio

Yottam Smilansky on Giulia Ricci, 'Orientation / Disorientation'

Within the vast planes of order and regularity, we suddenly encounter something different and new. How can we distinguish between a valuable rarity and a simple error? When is the unusual special, exciting but negligible, or perhaps just wrong? And how many little changes do we need to see before we are satisfied that new patterns are emerging and that something big is going on, that we really are inside a phase transition? In Ricci's beautiful prints I'm reminded of the importance of zooming in and out in mathematical exploration, and of the subtlety of detecting the threshold for a true and significant transformation.

Yotam Smilansky is a Lecturer in Dynamical Systems and Analysis at the University of Manchester, with a special interest in aspects of order and disorder in geometric patterns.