Ryan Wallace ignites activity from absence. His projects are realized through continuous cycles of creation, destruction, flattening, and reconstructing. Wallace’s work is self-sustaining, self-perpetuating, and self-determined in a way that cultivates organic development. In his recent paintings, Wallace takes inspiration from light refractions cast upon architectural interiors emanating from shimmering elements of his floor installations. These fleeting shapes are cut and rendered into controlled compositions, memorializing an unexpected byproduct of a previous artwork. In these works, the ephemeral becomes tangible while finding purpose as yet another element in the continuous mapping of Wallace’s terrain.
Exhibition A is proud to present Lenakaeia, a series of 20 unique works on archival pigment print, which emphasize the integrality of interdisciplinary media to Wallace’s painting practice. Utilizing our digital print as his base, Wallace reworked the two-dimensional pieces to reflect his characteristic materiality. Summoned from a process of simultaneous and continual removal and creation, as in his paintings, shapes were cut from the paper and replaced with contrasting materials from his studio. His painting materials have been seamed into the edition, creating a variety of surface sheen and textured impasto across the picture plane.
Each piece is unique and features intentional variants as created by the artist.
Ryan Wallace is currently in a two-person show with John Riepenhoff at the Elaine de Kooning House (East Hampton) and the group show, Brass Tacks, at Anat Ebgi Gallery (Los Angeles). He will open a show with Rosy Keyser, curated by Jaime DeSimone, at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA (Portland) in January 2018. Selected solo exhibitions include Romer Young Gallery (San Francisco), Susan Inglett Gallery (New York), 56 Henry (New York), Cooper Cole (Toronto). Recent group exhibitions include, Marjorie Barrick Museum, University of Nevada (Las Vegas), Christian Larsen (Stockholm) and Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York). He has appeared in ArtForum, Art in America, New York Magazine, Blouin Modern Painters, San Francisco Chronicle, Cultured Magazine, Artinfo, Hunted Projects, Deep Color, and Time Out New York. Wallace is in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), US Department of the Treasury (Washington DC), Watermill Center (Watermill, NY), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Harvard Business School (Cambridge, MA), RISD Museum (Providence), Marjorie Barick Museum of Art at University of Las Vegas and Progressive (Cleveland). Ryan Wallace co-owns and operates Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton. He was born in 1977 (New York, NY) and currently lives and works between Brooklyn and East Hampton, NY.
