Working in a variety of mediums Ryan Brown has created a visual language that serves to both celebrate and interrogate the nature of art, its creation and consumption as well as the systems that support it. His approach is genuinely playful and experimental, employing stylistic models culled from art history with a particular interest in the reinterpretation of geometric abstraction.  Brown resists referencing autobiographical content instead preferring to work from a perspective that views art and artist as one of a myriad of cultural, societal, technological and spiritual forces at work around him. 

 

    Over the last few years Brown has been creating large scale paintings based on the art auction catalog page as both subject matter and compositional template. Meticulously crafted using equal parts deliberation and chance these works challenge our concepts of progress and perfection. The intentionally ragged, collapsed, and sagging monochromic squares are accompanied with descriptive captions which, rather than inform the reader of the accurate date and provenance, remain nonsensical and misleading.

 

    Most recently Brown has been focusing on a series of large wall objects that at first glance appear to be minimalist abstractions but upon closer examination resemble enormous folded beach chairs. The works are assembled using painted canvas stretched over a steel frame which is distressed and permanently collapsed implying a sense of abandonment and neglect. Brown efficiently utilizes the dual symbolic impact of the beach chair and early modernist abstraction as a means to address notions such as the pursuit of paradise, escapism, leisure and the desire to transcend the realities of everyday life. 

 

Ryan Brown was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1977. He studied Fine Arts at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in New York. After graduating with honors in 2006 he was invited to participate in the European Exchange Academy in Beelitz, Germany. Ryan Brown has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions.