André Ricardo’s practice is anchored in careful exploration of tempera painting, a technique that encompasses the entire pictorial process—from preparing the canvas and handling pigments and binders to the painting itself. In this process, the artist carefully builds the transparency and luminosity of each color, as well as the drawing of the figures on the canvas, giving the surfaces a satiny or watery character.

At times, the marks of the drawing and brushstrokes are visible, revealing the work’s making process; at other times, the transitions between colors dissolve, and the color itself becomes a form of drawing.
 

By operating at the intersection of the canon of Western art history and the Brazilian cultural matrix, his work mobilizes forms of an archaic, timeless, and symbolic nature, presented as fragments of an imagistic universe open to new associations and arrangements through the gaze and speculation. André Ricardo holds a BFA from USP (University of São Paulo). In 2017, was nominated to the PIPA Prize and in 2022 completed a residency at Residency Unlimited in New York, USA.