PAINTING
ROBERT RICOV
(AUSTRALIA)
 
DETAILS
Oil on canvas
76 x 100 cm
2020
 
DESCRIPTION
"Since You Left Me" is a breathtaking oil painting made by the Australian artist Robert Ricov.
 
In this work, I attempted to express feelings of loss and sadness and the realization of something I should regret but do not.
 
A doll sits upon an antique syringe—the idealized female form, but plastic and cold.
 
She holds an apple, a biblical reference, but made of gold, representing an even more valuable sin. I have chosen to leave the contents of the syringe a mystery—it can be either medicine or poison—and I prefer my viewer to decide.
 
Although there is a black and a white crow, their opposing expressions show that nothing was ever truly black and white in this relationship. They stand apart, somewhat reminiscent of a yin-yang symbol, but separated by my viewer’s choice of liquid.
 
The couple at the bottom of the composition is a more direct representation of my past affair. She is as she was: flirtatious, full of laughter, and always teasing.
 
The man who holds her, who laughs with her—the rat man—is, in the end, how she saw me.
 
BIOGRAPHY
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 Guillermo Lorca and Martin Wittfooth mentored him.
 
It wasn’t until a few months after that he realized how profoundly this experience affected the direction of his work.
 
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