Ricci Albenda was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1966. He earned his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1988. Albenda's white built-in sculptures simulate an illusion that the gallery walls have begun to bulge, pinch, or warp. Part of his ongoing "Portals to Another Dimension" series, initiated in 1998, these concave and convex architectural interventions suggest forces beyond three-dimensional experience encroaching on our known universe. Albenda further problematizes the accepted rigidity of the built environment with trompe l'oeil projections and paintings that visually distort flat surfaces. For example, in 2005 the artist painted a mural for the lobby at the Hyatt Center in Chicago that creates the illusion of ...