"The paintings are like lovers that have a need to be desired, cherished and admired; to merely be liked would be a tragedy." -A.A. Rucci

Overheard at a recent exhibition: "Rucci has found a way to paint himself with past, current and future lovers without being overly sentimental, that's certainly not an easy thing to do."


AR Contemporary is pleased to announce “Sugar Ache”, an exhibition of new paintings by A.A. Rucci. This, his second solo exhibition at the gallery, is composed with the ingredients for pleasure:

The colors vibrate like the strings of an electric blues guitar, creating a visual harmonic structure contradicting the unpredictable narrative fictions that arise from a search for love and understanding. These rhythmic optical explorations, the shifts between abstraction & figuration, are more central European drama than Scandinavian design or American car culture.

By condensing the complexity and emotion of a live performance into a single image, Rucci serves the viewer a mini epic, one which becomes complete as it is spiced by the our personal experiences. As the paintings tickle our sense of recognition and are devoured into our memory, a pleasurable taste of tragic optimism offers us warmth.

The reductive architectural signifiers and even the vertical stripe in all its manifestations represent an immediate, tangible, physical space, whereas the horizontal stripes illustrate a distant, future or atmospheric space, the horizon.
In either case, they are psychological spaces that celebrate the beauty of the suffering, joy and truth of our existence.

The ingredients for pleasure are more than a riddle for happiness wrapped in a Mannerist bouquet, Rucci constructs a world that reveals and celebrates the Beauty in us all, it is up to us to embrace ourselves.

A.A. Rucci was born in Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany. After studying Art History at the University of Florida and Cambridge University, England, he worked as an archaeologist in Austria before becoming a full-time painter in 2000. Since 2006, A.A. Rucci lives in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group gallery and museum exhibitions. His most recent solo gallery exhibitions include Ambrosino Gallery, Miami (2007, 2004, 2003), Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston (2006) and Mixed Greens Gallery, NYC (2007 & 2005).