Rizzi Bio | RizziGuy NYC

Rizzi, born and raised in New York, has turned his childlike imagination into artistic powers - transforming the city itself into something wonderfully original.

His large panorama of Urban living is teeming with energy and life, reflecting all the diversity and human variety that is at the core of New York.

These are not "mean streets", but uproariously happy ones, where children jump rope, shoot baskets and walk their dogs. If the sidewalks belong to the young people, then the grown ups, especially men, are imprisoned inside an army of automobiles. The vehicles are as diverse and crazily idiosyncratic as the people who drive them.

Quotes by and about the artist

a “combination of print and sculpture that produces the 3D effect"
“Every day in an artist’s life is an adventure"
“I am reinventing myself as an artist and I feel that I am getting more and more confident"
“The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift."
"with his art, what you see is what you get. Any child can look at it and understand what he's trying to convey: a celebration of life."

Rizzi was most famous for his 3D artwork, "especially the large, elaborate prints and teeming anthropomorphic cityscapes. His merry maximalism and delight in delirious detail and elaborate minutiae created a true art brand, a trademark style as recognizable as any in the world". Later in life he returned to painting: the "paintings combine his Picasso meets Hanna-Barbera drawing style with an increasingly chromatic palette and a complex graphic structure that simultaneously evokes cubism and the most sophisticated Amerindian friezes."

The three-dimensionality gave James Rizzi's prints a sense of movement and playfulness. Looking at one of his creations is similar to Red Grooms, but with the vibrant energy of Keith Haring. It is much more akin to looking at one of the great 20th Century surrealists like Dali, Miro or Klee (self noted influences for the artist). Viewers are attracted to his eye catching colorful quirky works because they are dense with detail and reflect the energy and life of all the diversity and human variety that is typical of New York City.

Rizzi’s style defies a truly accurate comparison due to his unique process. His 3D works began with the artist sketching the scene, including all of the figures, cars, and buildings with their own jovial personalities. Upon finishing each dizzying sketch in ink the artist finalized the color coding, which was sent to his printer. The work then went into its final stage of collaging from multiple versions of prints that yielded the final three dimensional form.

Some Of Rizzi's Most Memorable Achievements Include: