Vanitas Painting

Ricz explores the borderline between figuration and abstraction. He aims to create harmonious compositions by using contrary sub-elements. The contrasts of naturalistic and geometrical, damaged and sterile, visible and hidden provide the essence of his imagery. The themes of his collage-like oil paintings are based on personal memories from his childhood in Eastern Europe, social, art historical and historical references. The oppositeness is characteristic of his color scale as well. Monochrome shades are juxtaposed with sharp, bright coloured details. The homogeneous and dark backgrounds give the feeling of a permanent space and are rooted in the Chiaroscuro technique of the Renaissance masters and its pronounced form Tenebrism. Ricz creates collages that serve as the ground to his oil paintings. He is mixing details of old paintings, photographs, magazine cut-outs and personal memory fragments in order to build up his compositions. Biography Geza Ricz was born in 1980 in Subotica(ex Yugoslavia) in a Hungarian family. Currently lives and works in Salzburg, Austria. His artworks have been featured in international magazines like ArtSlant-Under the radar, The Red Bulletin(AT), Art Maze Mag(UK), A5-Zine(UK), Symposion(SRB), Új Művészet(HU), ÉS(HU), kARTon(SRB). Ricz works in different creative fields. As art director and designer he has worked for clients like Red Bull, Burn, Leica, Telenor, Audi and Suzuki. He is a member of CTR-V art group and the Salzburger Kunstverein.