The creative proclivity towards recurring images often allows artists to reveal their subliminal consciousness. These are the images that taunt them through their waking lives and kept at bay during their slumber. Viviana Riccelli subsumes the unconscious into her works by interpreting the actual references and allowing automatistic approach to take charge of their completion. In Between Sky and Earth in Siquijor, Riccelli utilizes the terrains of Siquijor as the source for her latest inspiration but her time spent with different communities of varied cultures and of her introspection lead towards the navigation of the space’s emotional draws. This leap into her unconscious freed her from the bounds of the place and opened up the forms in her images creating a slew of abstracted forms, a direct nod to the abstract expressionists’ "multi-form" introduced by the likes of Mark Rothko and Willem De Kooning. Riccelli presents us her multidimensional paintings unbound by space and time and where all parts are inseparable with no void in between.
In each of Riccelli’s works we see the movement between the physical and intangible references of the works resulting into mindscapes. The works attempt to imbue a temporal scene with no fix moment; to recognize the vantage of the observer; and to encapsulate a personal experience while projecting its essence. The works are aptly titled as landscapes pertaining to their source, but Riccelli’s vision of the Visayan island added another layer to her subjects. The palimpsest and abstracted images of the sea, sand, local myths and legends, and abundance of natural life spawns the unseen depths of the island and its people.
Drawn to the island’s mesmerizing feats, Riccelli’s invites the audience to navigate the multiple facets of life found in the place as well as her experience of being with different world culture. In her meandering, Riccelli introduces us to faceless figuration inhabiting the spaces through her piece Le Bagnanti, which translates to "the bathers". In it, we see a serene view of the beach with shadows resting still like rocks mounted on dunes. Her series of watercolor and acrylic pieces transforms Riccelli’s vantage point into a walkthrough of her experiences of the activities surrounding the island. The portrayal of human struggles reduced into strokes and shadows that give us a sense of their effect towards the perceiver. Evident in her works like The Crowd, The Multitude, In The Shadows, The Presence and Transmigration, the identity of each individual is lost and their defining features is set by their anonymous presence within a group of overlapping planes.
In her pieces The View, The Tree, Jumping Over and The Space Beyond, Riccelli blends her approximation and untangling of her memory of the place. The mood she collects from seeing her environment can be seen through her use of color and tone. The cool colors found in the waters arrests our eyes while the earthly tones grounds us back to the land. In each momentary view, we are directed into the spaces unnoticed by the naked eye, reminding us to see beyond the real.
In Siquijudnon Landscape series, Riccelli elevates the mundane images of the terrain into abstracted forms. They explore the infinite possibility of laying down an experience or a vision through a visual plane. The intensity and tranquility of each scene is transposed with the use of suggestive hues and lines that project the dynamism and movement. The Vortex further elevates this theme by unleashing "surrealist automatism" to render final images in her works. The process conjures her unconscious to transpire over the process.
This act allows her paintings to oscillate between time and space rejecting a single meaning mar her vision. It also serves as her invitation to the audience to take a plunge into the unknown or the unseen, and to simply gravitate towards resulting images – the fossilized evidence of a moment. •
MICHAEL JOHN "LEC" CRUZ LIVES AND WORKS IN QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES. CRUZ IS A GRADUATE OF BA PHILOSOPHY AND STUDIED FINE ARTS MAJOR IN STUDIO ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES, DILIMAN. HE IS ALSO AN ACTIVE ART WRITER SINCE 2015 FOR ARTIST EXHIBITIONS IN VARIOUS METRO MANILA-BASED ART GALLERIES AND IN THE HONG KONG ART BIENNALE.
