Christopher Rico [he/his] is an American abstract painter living and working in Greenville, South Carolina. Rico has lived across the United States on military installations, small and large cities, and interior small towns; border to border, coast to coast. A long term resident of the southeast, he earned his BA from the University of Memphis in linguistics, and his MA from Clemson University in rhetoric, visual communication and digital literacy. His love of language and myth, along with his constant exposure to the rich and varied cultures of his native country have made him a lifelong explorer interested in discovering what makes us human through the medium of painting. Rico’s work has been exhibited in commercial galleries New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York City, along with exhibitions at the Spartanburg Art Museum, and multiple university galleries including Berkeley University. Rico has been in group shows in Heidelberg Germany and Queensland Australia as well as in the UK, and his writing has been published in academic journals, and two artist monographs. He has designed sets for professional theatre, and created installations in collaboration with multiple modern dance companies. He produced a short film of an art installation in an active construction site, now the Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy. Rico utilizes oversized asian calligraphy brushes in his practice, imbuing his compositions with visceral movement and energy. His combination of calligraphy-inspired gestures, often against hard edge abstraction create moody narratives of both rebirth and entropy. In 2024, he exhibited twice in NYC as well as Detroit, MI. Rico was one of the original members of Oye’ Studios, a 12 artist collective housed in a former church building in the N. Main neighborhood of Greenville, SC. He has recently moved into a larger studio in Taylors Mill