Jill Ricci BIO

One of the most arresting visuals for me is an old wall layered with papers, graffiti and text - our modern hieroglyphics. I try to re-create this beauty in my work, the layers of time and decay are what interest me. I hope that the person viewing my work will linger, trying to discover hidden imagery and text and depending on their life experience, find their own meaning or interpretation.

Found images and objects function as signifiers of both individual and collective experience. By incorporating materials that are linked to the realities of daily life, I strive to establish an immediate identification between the viewer and the work of art. I am exploring the place between “high art” and popular culture, text and image, figuration and abstraction, past and present , and two and three-dimensional space. By combining elements of advertising ephemera, hand-stenciled papers, global motifs, design and abstraction I find a way to create work that feels both ancient and modern.

I begin working without a final vision in mind: I use collected materials and allow pattern, texture, color and structure to emerge organically. In my current body of work, I aim to evoke the walls and architecture of exotic places, old subway walls with layers of posters, ads, graffiti and the stratum of paint with a hint of Malibu Barbie all simultaneously existing on one canvas.