Bryan Ricci

"I have always been interested in the way people in today’s fast-paced, high-tech culture perceive (or fail to perceive) their environment, with specific regard to nature and animals.  In other words, my paintings attempt to pose the question:  To what extent have we become physically, morally, and emotionally removed from our natural environments?  Is our day-to-day experience with nature perceived or real?  Also, how much of this separation is the effect of our obsession with technology?  

To examine these ideas in my newer work, (the series involving painted dots on photographs), I chose to synthesize a traditional medium of artistic expression (oil paint) with a technique that mimics the more modern pixelized images we see everyday on the internet and other media.  I started by photographing a landscape with a digital camera.  Then, I hand-pixelated an animal that I felt fit the scene, either realistically or ironically.  I wanted each piece to tell its own individual story. 

In all of my work, I am interested in bringing to light the ever-increasing disparities between the limited scope of our understanding of and experience with nature, (partly due to the replacement of the digital experience for what is real), and the enormity and timelessness of the natural world that goes unnoticed.  My paintings serve as a reminder of human ignorance and neglect, an invitation to look deeper, and a challenge to question and examine your own perceptions." -Bryan Ricci