Paolo Ricci was born in Rome in 1939 and has lived abroad in cities such as Wiesbaden, London, Amsterdam, and Chicago since the age of twenty. In Italy, he has resided in Rome, Como, and Castiglion Fiorentino. In his early years, Ricci studied art in London at a school directed by a student of Kokoschka. His work reflects traces of 20th-century Expressionism, combined with contemporary nuances of the New German School. His expressionist style, reinterpreted through a personal perspective, is characterized by a semantic richness of images and an unusual and personal kinetic energy.

Ricci's artistic and thematic influences draw from a deep understanding and assimilation of a long artistic tradition, inspired by Bosch, Sassetta, Grunewald, Fuseli, Blake, Rouault, Nolde, Bocklin, Kirchner, Bacon, Baselitz, and the alchemical drawings of J. D. Mylius's "Philosophia reformata."

Ricci's work incorporates figures from both Eastern and Western cultures, such as Buddha, the Tulpa, Christ, Lao Tzu, Samsara, Mandala, and mythical images juxtaposed with vortices. Both Eastern and Western cultures provide valuable insights to nourish the painter's imagination. His representations are journeys of mystical tension, analyzed through reason, resulting in a form of mystical atheism that contemplates Nothingness through a figurative language balanced between the sacred and the profane.

Paolo Ricci currently lives and works in Barnstaple, Devon (UK).