50 x 62 in. Frame
For his fourth solo exhibition with the Gallery, Wallace continues to push his mixed media paintings to conjure an ethereal space between the material and immaterial. Repurposing fragments from earlier and developing pieces, the artist seams and layers these materials into and atop each other, forming hard-edged planes. The abstract shapes cut from canvas actively work with and against the other by folding, evolving, and repeating across the support. He excavates and manipulates the surface of his works to bring forth a multitude of textures and perspectives. Tiers of oil, acrylic, mylar, aluminum, and copper tape unite to evoke a captivating portal into Wallace’s process and vision.
Behind the artist’s formal abstraction lies a compendium of sources and materials rooted in reality, whether drawn from the natural world or the celestial realm. A cool-toned palette of whites, silvers, and blues originates from an aerial photograph taken by the artist of the Siberian landscape. The flickering action of his evolving forms mimics the light reflecting off Plexiglas flooring in his installation work and from chance domestic observations photographed during quarantine. This luminosity now radiates from within his paintings through aluminum and copper slivers that delineate undulating shapes. Bridging past iterations with the present, the ethereal with the earthly, the artist manifests something familiar, almost tangible, while taking the viewer on a pictorial journey into an exciting new realm.
RYAN WALLACE (b.1977, NYC) lives and works in Brooklyn and East Hampton, NY. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco; 56 Henry, NYC; University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and Cooper Cole, Toronto. Work has recently been exhibited at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; ICA at MECA, Portland; Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach; Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn; Marjorie Barrick Museum, Las Vegas; and the Elaine de Kooning House, East Hampton, among others. Wallace’s works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; and the Watermill Center, Watermill, among others.
