Attached Observer is the title of my 2025 solo exhibition at the Washington Printmakers Gallery. This show expanded the body of work I started with my 2024 exhibition, A Few Blocks From Here, to explore the city as a site of contradictions: between beauty and debauchery, romance and anxiety, community and alienation.
From the opening reception, July 5, 2025
An Offer You Can't Refuse
2025
monotype, watercolor
16"x18" plate on 20"x23" paper
Are You Here Yet?
2025
etching, aquatint, spraypaint aquatint, drypoint, a la poupée
12”x16” plate on 16”x21” paper
Delirium at the Intersection
2025
etching, spraypaint aquatint, a la poupée
11.5”x9” plate on 17”x14.5” paper
Who Cares if We Get Caught?
2025
etching, spraypaint aquatint, drypoint
7”x7” plate on 11”x11.5” paper
Light Rail Romantic
2025
etching, aquatint, drypoint
9”x6” plate on 14”x10.75” paper
Lost Dog Fantasy
2025
etching, spraypaint aquatint
6"x9" plate on 10"x14" paper
ID Check Embrace
2025
monotype, watercolor, colored pencil
9”x12” plate on 14”x17.5” paper
The Voyeur
2025
monotype, watercolor, colored pencil
9”x12” plate on 14”x17.5” paper
Mark Jenkins, from the Galleries column at the Washington Post, posted a favorable review of the show in his newsletter:
"WINDOWS ARE BOTH PORTALS AND TRANSITION POINTS in Philippe Ricard's frisky prints of Baltimore, his adopted hometown. Originally from suburban California, Ricard moved east to study printmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art. There he mastered multiple processes, as he demonstrates in 'Attached Observer,' his Washington Printmakers Gallery show. The artist's style is boisterously cartoonish, but his technique is subtle and refined.
[...] None of Ricard's subjects are voyeurs. 'Delirium at the Intersection' portrays one of Baltimore's controversial squeegee wielders, but more often the artist's characters turn away from the window, whether to make out inside a car or gaze at other passengers on a train. What they're missing is the spot where light shifts, and thus color schemes change, evoking an entirely different mood. In Ricard's prints, every window can open onto a new world."