Viviana Riccelli responds to her immediate surroundings in the mystical island of Siquijor, where she has been residing for over a decade. Born in Italy, Ricelli studied art in her birthplace Rome, as well as in the cities of Venice and Umbria, where she apprenticed under Abstract Expressionist Nicolas Carone for nearly 30 years. Carone was one of the founders of the New York School and would spend half the year between Umbria and New York. As Ricelli’s mentor, he played an important role in her formation, mainly teaching her how to see with a multidimensional view of the world and to be able to reassemble this view into abstract landscapes.

While in Italy, Riccelli also trained in murals and frescoes with restoration conservators and learned to make sculptures in terracotta and other ceramics. To this day, she follows antique recipes when working with gouache. Under another rewarding apprenticeship with American artist Beverly Pepper, who permanently moved to Umbria, Riccelli further developed skills in sculpture, contributing sculptural solutions that built her confidence in the practice.

From 1978 to 2011, Riccelli had gradually became a true citizen of the world, living and working in numerous countries including Italy, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Thailand. Alongside making art, she spent time in these places working for the UNHCR and for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, experiences that strengthened her stand on social issues and shaped her personality. Together with her husband, a German cultural anthropologist, she lived with tribes and other local people, keenly aware of the politics of each region, crucial in her attempts to cooperate in the nation’s development. Among the humanitarian problems she is passionate about are global migration, the refugee crisis and HIV AIDS policies. It was her goal to be at the forefront of difficult situations, in unity with people who struggle in their daily lives, always curious of the world’s realities, constantly discovering and exchanging ideas with other cultures.

When Riccelli moved to Siquijor 11 years ago, she settled in its rural area. Her community work continued with teenagers, organizing collaborative art workshops where they paint together and share materials. It is her wish to encourage solidarity and provide them with motivation and hope, to be constructive, active in pursuing their destinies, satisfied with themselves. In a culture where young people are shy, family ties are strong, and conflicts are avoided, she managed over time to be allowed to have her place here.

Within this rural environment, Riccelli creates automatic paintings and abstract landscapes, “searching into a void where multidimensional planes and states of mind overlap in the picture plane, where emotions can be made real.” She explores unconscious figures that arise as if from a dream or hallucination. These interconnected planes between reality and imagination stem from her fascination with the idea of the fourth dimension. The fourth-dimension theory proposes that along with length, width and depth, time also plays a part in unpredictable ways, a concept attributed to Albert Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity”. The possibility of a fourth dimension suggests that we live in parallel realities, that we are many persons in one and that we can have many different lives. Riccelli’s multiple picture planes reflect these various levels that can meld and interact, events occurring simultaneously in alternate universes.

The paintings, drawings and mixed media works are an amalgamation of Riccelli’s deep experiences, her studies and technical knowledge, and the influence of her latest habitat. They are based on what she has seen and perceived in Siquijor: the constant sounds from birds and insects communicating day and night, the geography of forests, hills, valleys, and water that surround her home, and most importantly, the tales of magic. All types of folks on the island, from fishermen to educated professionals, believe in the existence of an unseen world. They wear protective amulets, objects with spells, and are certain of mermaids, spirits that live in trees, and herbalist healers. Much of these emerge from their total dependence on nature and close encounters with death. Riccelli interprets such common encounters, positioning works-in-progress all over her house, looking at them for hours every day, until she decides that there is nothing further to express. Drawing is always her starting point as the foundation for precision and the exploration of possibilities. Her paintings and mixed media involve acrylic, watercolor, oil, and collage– the subjects layered with elements of fantasy and science fiction, portrayed in brilliant colors taken from flora, birds, fish, local clothing patterns, as illuminated with very bright sunlight. “I aim at creating hidden realities behind walls of colors.” This is how she conveys the fourth dimension: a cosmic universe in which our world might merely be a shadow of a higher dimensional existence.

By Stephanie Frondoso