Ricardo Gonzalez

Ricardo Gonzalez utilizes a limited palette, simplified mark-making, and sense of humor to explore the language of expressionistic painting and drawing. His work draws on his own automatic drawings, urban wall scribbles that populate his environment in Mexico City and New York, and celebrates a recurrence of Art Brut via the likes of Jean Dubuffet, Karel Appel, and A.R. Penck. His fast manic drawing suggests an intuitive child-like doodle. Fragmented figures with grimaces and smirks frequent Gonzalez’s work invoking a character all too familiar that is deep rooted in our collective unconscious, a sort of savage full of uninhibited energy that could easily be found in early rock n' roll or the tales of early outlaw blues songs. The paintings ricochet between the sublime and the nihilistic, creating a tacit dialogue between satirical cartoon and evocative painterly gesture. Gonzalez elevates seemingly cursory doodles into signifiers of pure form, medium, and process, thus propelling them into the language of art. 

Ricardo Gonzalez was born in Mexico City and lives and works in New York. He received an MFA from New York University, and his BFA at New England School of Art & Design, Boston, MA and Madrid, Spain. He has exhibited in numerous venues in New York, Boston, Miami, Berlin, Mexico, and Belgium. Recent exhibitions include Daniela Elbahara Gallery, Mexico City, Galeria Alegria, Madrid, PEANA Projects, Monterrey, Mexico, and Left Field Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA. He is a recipient of the Martin Wong Scholarship Award in Painting, and his work has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Galerie Magazine, Art F City, and Pas un Autre.