“The elephant has been a great device or armature for me to explore formal concerns. It’s a rack to hang an idea on”
Elephant, Geoffrey Ricardo
“The elephant has been a great device or armature for me to explore formal concerns. Changing from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and back and around in an almost cyclical fashion. I use it to experiment with, see what happens when I make it bigger, give it two heads, paint it or patinate it, etch the surface, extend the trunk to become something else – a flag pole perhaps. It’s a rack to hang an idea on.
Over three decades of creative practice the elephant, a much loved and revered creature, has become an engaging visual device for Geoffrey Ricardo, providing a continual focus for the development of his richly dark and potent imagery. What began as delicious scribbles and whimsical notations on intaglio plates, have resulted in a series of work depicting the elephant form supported by human figures draped in pantomime costume.
Encouraging the absurd, Ricardo has extended the bizarre by showing the elephant helplessly swathed in patterned lightweight cloth, thereby creating a narrative garnered with pathos.”
excerpt from ‘Geoffrey Ricardo – Elephants’, by Caroline Field
