Desire by Matthew Ricci

Size (cm): 130 x 149
Oil paint and pastel on canvas.

As with most my figurative paintings, ‘Desire’ began as an autonomous, geometric scrambling in graphite on the canvas. Within this chaos I find the form which then becomes the figure. Through finding the figure in Desire I reflected on ideas of growth, beauty, aspiration and vulnerability.

I use thin washes of oil paint to find the figure, a process of erasure and addition. Colour emerges intuitively, secondary to form. I begin with a loose chromatic direction, allowing the painting itself to dictate shifts in palette. This unpredictability is integral to my process—each composition unfolds organically, negotiating between control and dissolution. In this way, the act of painting mirrors the conceptual weight of the work: the human figure, both singular and collective, suspended within the contradictions of existence.