Welcome Ryan Crowley (RAiR 2023-24)
Ryan Crowley in his RAiR studio, 2024.
To begin with some limitation forces me to invent alternatives. Unexpected characters creep in. I embrace a process of revision, chance, failure and mis-use of materials to arrive at wonky, off kilter forms. While making a sculpture a single object goes through many iterations and has multiple lives. In the end I like when a thing partially reveals some of its secrets and invites a kind of visual spelunking. Right now one of the ways I’m thinking through sculpture is as if I’ve been called to repair some unknown piece of equipment or mend a breach in a fence without any of the right tools for the job.
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Ryan Crowley is a mixed media sculptor. National exhibitions include Hometown Gallery, Coustofwaxman, Wayfarer’s Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), TSA Chicago, Julius Caesar (Chicago), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, TX), Mass Gallery (Austin, TX), Wayside (FL), La Montagne Gallery, 4th Wall (Boston), 1708 Gallery, Sediment Arts and Reference Gallery (Richmond, VA). Crowley was the recipient of a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts professional artist grant. Currently, he is an artist in residence at RAIR in Roswell, NM.
New Moves, 2015, FGR, plaster, OSB, steel, bed sheets, chicken wire, paper pulp, vegetable dyes, fabric dyes, aluminum foil, foam pedicure sandals, 9’ x 5’ x 32.”
GUM, 2016, plaster, urethane plastic, bronze, aluminum foil, animal hide glue, paper pulp, bass wood, pine, burnt sugar, 9’ x 7’ x 20.”
Heater, 2022, plaster, graphite, ink, pigment, toothpicks, steel wire, glass, 20” x 15” x 9.”
Skep, 2023, plaster, steel wire, graphite, pigments, pastels, 20” x 12” x 10.”
Artist’s Studio Interior, Cherry St. Studio, 2017