RICCIE ALBENDA

Four paintings are centred on opposing walls, each bearing the word “breathe.” lending the exhibition its title. While seemingly uniform at first glance, the individual compositions are layered with the history of the artist’s decisions, forming a progression from frenetic mark-making to reserved, and decisive brushstrokes. Inviting further contemplation, these idiosyncrasies imbue the works with a sensory quality, allowing recognisable text to slowly shift and morph into new abstract forms.

For the past two decades, Ricci Albenda has performed an investigation into language, exploring the ways in which the written word is simultaneously a visual, personal, and intellectual entity. Simultaneously, Albenda has also developed his own system in which alphabetical and numerical systems are paired with the colour wheel: Vowels fall onto the archetypal hues of the prismatic ROYGBIV spectrum: a = Red, e = Orange, i = Yellow, o = Green, u = Blue, and y finds itself between Indigo and Violet. Numerals occupy the magenta tones, connecting the end of the alphabet with its beginning to form a complete colour wheel. Within these investigations, each work becomes its own framework and site of inquiry, demonstrating versatility, and most importantly, the sense of play inherent to studio practice.

Ricci Albenda (b. 1966, Brooklyn) lives and works in New York. In 2020, Albenda had a solo exhibition at Parrasch Heinjen, Los Angeles, and in 2018, at ‘T’Space, Rhinebeck, New York. Other past solo exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Rachofsky House, Dallas. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at venues which include, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, Castello Di Rivoli, Turin, Museum of Modern Art, New York, MoMA PS1, Queens, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the New Museum, New York. Ricci Albenda’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.