My work in printmaking draws upon the observation, invention, and integration of details from the natural and built environment. Like the 18thcentury tradition of ruins in Italian art, I express the passage of time and invoke longing and the pathos of things forgotten, but from a magnified perspective. I create compositions with natural and industrial fragments of the neighborhoods that surround my Philadelphia studio. Using light and shade, I convey the trace of a previous moment. Images of living plants, such as thick beds of locust beans or clematis prospering in urban lots, express the seemingly indestructible perseverance of nature. My studio practice embraces new technologies and experimental approaches as well as traditional conceptions of expert print quality. In prints that explore the fusion of natural and artificial, I invent new means of integrating traditional and contemporary methods, including etching, mezzotint, photogravure, photopolymer, digital photography, photo-laser relief, and intaglio printing from natural found materials. Layering textures and techniques, I explore the generative fusion of real and imaginary worlds. Most recently, I am translating small-scale photogravure ideas and processes into monumental, hand-printed laser woodcuts. I strive to produce work that speaks with authority using mysterious and subtle effects of the medium.

Richard Hricko is a printmaker whose work presents composite details of the natural and built environment that honor nature, industry, and the course of decay and recovery. Influenced by the tradition of ruins in Italian art, he similarly expresses the passage of time and invokes longing and the pathos of things forgotten, but from a uniquely magnified perspective. He embraces new technologies and experimental approaches to his medium as well as the traditional skills and focus of the master printer. Layering such disparate ideas and techniques, he explores the generative fusion of real and imaginary worlds. 

Hricko has exhibited work nationally and internationally in museums and galleries, including International Print Center New York, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in New York, Tanks Art Centre in Australia, PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, and the National Academy Museum in New York. Most recently he won 1st place in Experimental Prints at the 2nd Triennial of Contemporary Graphic Arts at Novosibirsk State Art Museum in Russia. In the mid 2000s he co-founded Crane Arts, where he currently maintains his studio. He also co-founded and serves on the board of Second State Press, a community-based printmaking studio.