UPDATE on recent work and events for Ryder:
The newest drawings, all titled Revelation, continue to explore themes of pattern and power, utilizing the statue of Hercules killing the Centaur by Giambologna in Florence. Establishing content through the statue’s mythological reference to a demi-god enacting trials of violence for salvation, the works are experiments in softening this power and geometrically ordering the violence and image. Some of the patterning is derived from pistol grip decorative patterning and some is from Versailles, both act as beautiful seductions or distractions in the service of a far scarier power.
The most obvious change is the cut paper dissecting the full image to reveal a secondary layer of information. Requiring more planning and drawing on both sides of the paper, these drawings have become more technically challenging while offering fragility and a greater capacity for nuanced content.
This summer I had the pleasure to conducted interviews with 8 international artists at the ISC Conference “Scale: A Gathering of Sculptors” held at Blue Star in San Antonio. The 60 page catalog will be coming out later this summer.
I will be teaching an alternative drawing course at Touchstone Center for Crafts outside of Pittsburgh next week, which allowed me the opportunity to submit work for the juried exhibition “Touchstone Faculty 2012”. Pleasure Principle II has been accepted and will be on display at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Mill Run, PA.
Next month Culture Laboratory Collective will be displaying “Land Portrait” at the downtown gallery of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Another group I exhibit with, Cirkit of Mythos, will be showing work at Antena Pilsen, Chicago in late July. I am also participating in “Hope is Never Silent”, a GBLT and friends exhibit traveling Texas.
Don’t worry, that is not all. More to come in August.
~Ryder, June 13, 2012