Vincent Ricardel, “The Chase, Venice, Italy” (Gallery Neptune & Brown)
Mark Jenkins, DisCerning Eye
Oct 08, 2025
THERE SEEM TO BE AT LEAST TWO VINCENT RICARDELS, to judge by his show at Gallery Neptune and Brown, “Chasing Light.” One of them gazes down toward the ground, or up to the sky, to spy disembodied feet and legs or a girl who chases a cat who’s scattering a flock of pigeons. The other makes views of water so immersive that they nearly swallow the viewer. The former photos are in black-and-white, as are almost all these pictures. The latter are in dye-sublimation color, for which Ricardel demonstrates an exquisite if only occasional flair.
The photographer, who divides his time between south Florida and northern Virginia, trains his lenses on Europe and Asia, as well as the United States. Two of the three water pictures were made on the seashore in Hawaii or on Long Island. The third, a fantasia of reflected green and purple and shimmering white highlights, is a closeup of the water in the moat that surrounds the Imperial Place in Tokyo. It’s a highly specific location, identified in the photo’s title but rendered unrecognizably abstracted.
Further demonstrating his versatility, Ricardel offers a platinum contact print of a slumping bloom he terms a “sleeping tulip” and a sheet of blurred closeups of a woman’s face that looks like nine frames from a 1920s German expressionist film. But most of his pictures are examples of street photography that rely on unexpected events and serendipitous lighting. Whether it’s the girl, cat, and birds or a ballerina’s pas a deux with her own shadow, Ricardel captures the everyday at the exact moment it becomes remarkable.