PAINTING
ROBERT RICOV
(CROATIA / AUSTRALIA)
 
DETAILS
Oil on canvas
75 x 120 cm
2024
 
DESCRIPTION
She keeps giving herself away. Night after night, year after year. On display for everyone to see, but this is the perfect place to hide, for no one ever really sees her. No one except him. That perfect winter when it was only her and him. When he bought her entirely for himself, when she was worth more but cost less. A pensive mood envelopes her in the early hours. A brief pause between clients. Somewhere during the late 1800s, somewhere in France. A brothel on the outskirts of a small town, on the edge of an ancient forest. There are fairies and goblins and all manner of enchanted creatures therein, or so the locals say. But tonight it is a cherub that has entered her boudoir. He is invisible to her. She cannot hear him nor feel him, but the effect he has on her causes her to stop and reflect. For the first time in a long time she is questioning her choices. It has been so long since she has felt anything, but tonight she feels shame, an emotion she thought she had abandoned a long time ago. She stares at the ring that has forever sat on her bedside table—green like the absinthe she drinks to help her play make-believe. But she now remembers who it was that gave it to her, the one she used to drink absinthe with. The one who introduced her to it and then left her with nothing but this life, if she can even call it that. The cherub has played his part well tonight. Because sometimes—just sometimes—you can save someone that does not want to be saved.
 
BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST
Robert Ricov b. 1973 Sydney, Australia BA 1994, College of Visual Arts, Sydney Robert Ricov has been living, working, and exhibiting in Croatia since he moved there in 2022. His oil paintings, in a style he refers to as “surreal maximalist realism,” use symbolism to represent themes such as the loss of innocence, betrayal, and hope. In October of 2023, Robert traveled to the island of Menorca, Spain, where he was mentored by Guillermo Lorca and Martin Wittfooth. It wasn’t until a few months after that he realized how profoundly this experience affected the direction of his work. After Robert became finalist in the Toolip Art Contest in Budapest in 2024, he is represented exclusively by the Toolip Art Gallery.