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Rico White

Richard ‘Rico’ White is a Cheltenham-born, London-based contemporary figurative artist and illustrator. After studying illustration at Brighton, and later portraiture in Florence, Italy, he found a happy medium somewhere in between the two. His large-scale oil paintings are a mix of figuration and abstraction, appearing as fragments of a narrative. Exploring themes of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-moments of human interactions, micro-expressions, and concealed emotions, viewers are offered a freeze-frame of the storyline.

“My colour palettes draw inspiration from the old masters with darker tones and high illumination to bring figures to the foreground, and hopefully, embracing a contemporary aesthetic in the process. My recent series, entitled Fragment, explores themes of contradictions, such as strength and vulnerability in the human form… My subject is predominantly rendered faceless, whilst torsos and limbs are the central focus and highly detailed in motion, deliberately limiting the information presented.”

Blurring the lines of complete and incomplete, he mixes highly detailed imagery with stark negative space, inviting the viewer to fill in the gaps.