For Rico Gatson, who was born in the South of the United States, in Georgia, it’s the California sun that comes back as a persistant motif. The artist moved there when he was a child. And he recreates, with his kinetic visions, the Californian “sunsets” whose light is “free for all” and bears hope. 

But in his paintings, geometry is never pure abstraction. Certain forms arise, very real. Like the American flag, which the artist recreates to offer a more open, more inclusive vision. 

Inspired by all the spetrum of blacl music, Rico Gatson translates the energy of sounds and rhythms into his choic of colors. The artist is also marked by the Afro-futurist aesthetic borrowded from free jazz musicians — from Albert Ayler to Yusef Lateef — from funk — Parliaments and Funkadelic — and from hip hop. Geometric shapes change into spiritual, transcendental and symbolic powers.
The artist also evokes the importance of the political movement Black Lives Matter. His works subtly reflect his personal commitment.

For this first duo show, two sensibilities dialogue, two visions are shared. But the question of identity runs through both works, each in its own way. And as Cydne Jasmin Coleby summarizes about her relation to Rico Gatson: “Even if we don’t have the same subject, we speak the same language”.

Boris Bergmann