… Self-analysis (whether or not he consciously practices it) is certainly the root force that drives Riccardi to make paintings.  Perhaps also to write music.
… The act of exploring and recognizing the “real” is achieved on canvas and on paper through isolated fragments, focused on a few elements that assume a symbolic significance such as the eye, the organ of seeing and the hand, the instrument of concretely doing, both extraneous to the world of sensations that belong to the musical experience. They represent the theme around which one of his first cyclical series is organized. The series intentionally alternates between a very sharp figuration—with a peremptory black image that encloses and defines the shape on the sheet—-to another more allusive figuration that leaves a great deal of space for experimentation with the material of the painting itself.