Apart from the street and the gallery and the glass that separates them, what remains is the melee. The wall says it all: above and below, the entire exhibition revolves around the melee of a single horizon; that point where the sky becomes sky and the earth becomes earth, each within the remnants of the Other. The exhibition is La particella di Dio (The God Particle), Riccardo Ricca’s first solo show, curated by Luca Cantore d’Amore, with a critical essay by Giulia Ronchi, at the Fabbrica Eos gallery until 18 January 2026.
Riccardo Ricca, “La particella di Dio”, 2025, exhibition view at Fabbrica Eos, Milano, courtesy of the artist and Fabbrica Eos
The horizon is the dividing line that establishes the terms of comparison between the two main movements that have animated Ricca’s research over the past year, and which occupy the largest wall of the gallery. Below the horizon, the dormant buds of Radici (Roots) darkly harbour their bundle of possibilities. Above, those same possibilities explode in Deserto Florido (Flowering Desert), a dark and ragged dance that withers as soon as it blooms, as if ready to retreat back into the soil. But seasons are not mentioned in these parts. The cyclical nature of the action is only a function of the narrative, but its parts all take place at the same moment. In other words, the author’s ambush on painting is based on the intransigence with which he demands to have two opposing circumstances enclosed in his gaze. Ultimately, it is a question of creating a paradoxical space that contains both itself and the Other: and more than knowing each other, more than loving each other: overflowing each other.
Riccardo Ricca, “La particella di Dio”, 2025, exhibition view at Fabbrica Eos, Milano, courtesy of the artist and Fabbrica Eos
The science of overflowing has deep roots. The exhibition, centred on the horizon stretching between Roots and Desert, articulates these roots in a series of works by Ricca that provide an overview of his career since completing his academic studies. The Orizzonti (Horizons) series brings together the artist’s first forays into eminently interior landscapes. The canvases in this section are painted after being folded one or more times, so that the pigments pass through the cotton, receiving in return the impressions of the supporting surface. It is understood that the process postulates a radical trust in a pictorial process that is designed to exceed itself. The search for the unexpected, regardless of its origin (but it is clear that the artist has a name in mind, and I will return to this shortly), is the first impulse that supports that desire to have opposites gathered in the same eyes: intention and the unexpected, the self and the Other, unhappiness and joy, earth and sky, brush and decal. This is the horizon, a space carefully guarded so that everything can happen together, as in an assembly of opposites.
Riccardo Ricca, “La particella di Dio”, 2025, exhibition view at Fabbrica Eos, Milano, courtesy of the artist and Fabbrica Eos
The closer we get to the end of the exhibition, the more the author’s investigation measures the secret in its essentiality; this method soon requires us to embark on the path of darkness. At this pressing juncture, Ricca resorts to a dense stratification of various, deeply foreseen connections: the reverie of a people subject to the night, complementary to the mythical Hyperborean nation, which the classics believed to be immersed in eternal light; the dark constellations of the Incas, patches of darkness against the dazzling arteries of the Milky Way; the Talmudic God, secret and unknowable inhabitant of the shadows. This is the name Ricca chooses for the interlocutor of his tireless struggle: without embarrassment, the name is God. The effort, still paradoxical, is to hold together the blinding light of Creation with the shadows it produces, and within which it is present despite everything. To have, in the night of despair, the notion of the joyful, daytime condition: nothing less is asked of representation here.
Riccardo Ricca, “La particella di Dio”, 2025, exhibition view at Fabbrica Eos, Milano, courtesy of the artist and Fabbrica Eos
However, God is just a name, within which to enclose a space fraught with unnameable intentions. As in any major exhibition, the ultimate ability to inhabit this space is ultimately hostage to the viewer’s sense, the only point of reference that has the power to bring out the potential vibrations of the faces hanging on the walls; and meaning is not satisfied with names: it desires to overflow. The science of overflowing is a dripping phenomenon that leaves greasy marks. It decisively contradicts the elegance of the setting, which takes on the composed appearance of a clever diversion.
Riccardo Ricca, “La particella di Dio”, 2025, exhibition view at Fabbrica Eos, Milano, courtesy of the artist and Fabbrica Eos
Apart from the street and the gallery and the glass that separates them, there remains the narrow space, inside which there is barely room for two subjects: the viewer and the work, which confront each other uncleanly, press close together, exchange roles: until, for a moment, the differences blend together, and all things come together. This conversation is difficult and precious, because without it, both interlocutors would have remained strangers to each other. And now, they continue like leftovers. Driven to the next horizon, along the eternal path that leads to unspeakable fullness, of which these faces on the walls are, again and again, the most convincing clue.
Info:
Riccardo Ricca. La particella di Dio
09/12/2025 – 18/01/2026
Fabbrica Eos
Viale Pasubio, 8/a, Milano (MI)
www.fabbricaeos.it
Born in Venice in 1998, after graduating from high school, he moved to Milan where he studied painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. In 2023 he published his first essay for the Calibano series by Prospero Editore: “Tradizione e Trasgressione. Note dall’India per un’arte indipendente”. In 2024 he won the Europa in Versi Giovani prize, which was followed by the publication in 2025 of his anthology “sillabario del terribile incanto” by Quaderni del Bardo Editore. He is currently attending the two-year course in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at Naba in Milan.
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