Robert Ricov

Robert Ricov (b. 1973, Sydney, Australia) is an Australian-born painter currently living and working in Croatia. Trained at TAFE NSW Design Centre Enmore in Sydney, Ricov creates oil paintings in a style he describes as surreal maximalist realism. His richly detailed figurative works explore themes of innocence and loss, betrayal and hope, using symbolism to transform emotional chaos into scenes of strange familiarity.

Ricov’s paintings place enigmatic figures within lush, dreamlike environments that evoke nostalgia for places never fully known, fragments of imagined cities, memories, and desires woven together into a single world. Influenced by his belief in preserving a personal vision, and shaped by a mentorship experience in Menorca by Guillermo Lorca and Martin Wittfooth in 2023, his work invites viewers to confront the beauty and ugliness of human experience, rendered through the tactile, expressive language of oil paint. He has been represented by Toolip Art Gallery since 2024.