Opening Reception: Saturday, June 6, 6 – 8 pm
 

Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to present The Force of Color: Ann Marie Auricchio & Ryoko Endo, an exhibition that positions color as an active, shaping force rather than a descriptive element. Across both practices, color operates as a condition, structuring space through gesture, accumulation, and tension. Marks collide, recede, and reconfigure without resolution, creating a sustained dialogue in which perception remains fluid and unsettled.
 

Ann Marie Auricchio’s work examines the psychological dimensions of disruption and renewal, where collapse becomes generative. Saturated, dynamic color intensifies contrast and drives the work into shifting states. Through a process rooted in collage and reconstruction, she dismantles and reassembles fragments from her archive, carrying forward the DNA of past gestures into new forms. Each painting operates as a distillation, holding accumulated marks, time, and motion within a single surface. Drawing from geological and atmospheric phenomena, the work reflects internal states of flux and re-formation. Departing from the rectangle, each painting takes on an irregular structure, where fragmented elements are reorganized into new configurations, and what appears broken retains the potential for coherence.
 

Ryoko Endo’s work begins with gesture, where a single mark establishes a relationship between movement, color, and space. Drawing from her background in Japanese calligraphy and her study of push and pull in color, she develops compositions in which hues advance and recede, shaping spatial depth through their interaction. Layers are built through variations in speed, opacity, and placement, allowing the surface to remain responsive and in flux. The paintings unfold as dynamic fields in which balance is continuously negotiated and meaning emerges through the interplay of perception and sensation.
 

Auricchio was born in New York and currently resides in New Orleans. She earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has participated in residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a recipient of the 2025 Bolster Arts Continuum Fellowship and has received support from the Karen Shea and Gabe Silverman Endowment and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Recent solo exhibitions include 5-50 Gallery in New York, the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Alabama, and Ferrara Showman Gallery in New Orleans. Additional exhibitions include White Columns (NY), The Painting Center (NY), the Alexandria Museum of Art (LA), and the Contemporary Art Center New Orleans. Before dedicating herself full-time to her studio practice, Auricchio spent 25 years as a scenic artist and designer for film, theater, and television. Her work is held in private and public collections including McNeese University, Azamara Cruise Lines, and the Scott Company, and has been reviewed in the Denver Post, Inside of Knoxville, and Whitehot Magazine.
 

Endo was born in Japan and resides in New York. She studied graphic design and typography at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and then furthered her studies in painting at the Art Students League, NY, mentoring under second generation Abstract Expressionist artist, Kikuo Saito. Select exhibitions include ChaShaMa, (NY), Arts Students League (NY) as well as their satellite venues, Octavia Art Gallery (LA & TX), the Hamptons Fine Art Fair (NY) Art Wynwood (FL), and Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary (FL). Endo has received scholarships from the Fantasy Fountain Fund and the Trudy and Henry Gillette Painting scholarship. She was awarded a grant from Lloyd Sherwood and received both the Red and Blue Dot awards through the Arts Students League (NY). Endo’s work is in private collections worldwide and in the permanent collection of Mount Sinai Hospital (NY).