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Installation view, West gallery

 
 
 
 

Frank Ryan and Ben Rivera
Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan
April 14 - May 26, 2012
Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 14, 6-8pm
 
gallery km is very pleased to present Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan in our West gallery. The exhibition will run from April 14 through May 26th, with a reception for the artists on April 14th, from 6-8pm.
 
Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan is a joint exhibition by Los Angeles-based artists Frank Ryan and Ben Rivera, featuring solo work by both artists as well as collaborative silkscreens created for the exhibition. Ryan’s solo contributions include highly representational oil paintings on linen and board, while Rivera’s range from sculptures made with found chairs, glass and felt, to silkscreen paintings mounted on aluminum.
 
Each artist takes classicism as a starting point for an examination of historically embedded modes of looking, and the complicated relation to sincerity and identity endemic to contemporary life, and the contemporary art dialogue. Ryan’s work is highly invested in classical technique, and he uses that technique to question the possibilities of representation, and to underline its inherent voyeurism. Rivera’s work employs controlled repetition in order to highlight the imperfections and distinctions between each presentation.
 
Doubling, and the relation between multiple views of the same object is a strong theme in the exhibition. Ryan reflects upon the mechanics of both ocular and camera surveillance by mimicking the left-right separation of human eyes in a diptych depicting a funeral parlor with coffins for sale, and through a split painting taken from two consecutive Michelangelo Antonioni film stills. Rivera effects doubling through silkscreen paintings based upon late High Renaissance sculptures, and through a pair of sculptures constructed with chairs bisected by glass.
 
Both artists utilize their material techniques as a method of removing themselves from the content of their work—intending to create documents rather than interior expressions. Their insistence upon duality, however, brings the viewer back to the impossibility of self-removal in any process involving looking and its inherent subjectivity.
 
Ben Rivera was born in Honduras in 1971, and lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a simultaneous BA in Latin American Studies and BFA in Painting from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has exhibited at Paredon Blanco and Five Thirty Three in Los Angeles, and at Balazzo Badlands Gallery and Mission Cultural Center and Somarts in San Francisco.
 
Frank Ryan received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006. His work has been included in group shows at gallery km, Latned Atsar, and Paredon Blanco among others in Los Angeles, as well as solo and group shows at Walter Maciel Gallery. He has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine and New American Paintings, and his work has been written about in LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Times.

 

Download press release

  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3671
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3669
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3670
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3672
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3674
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3661
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3673
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Installation view, West gallery
    3680
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Antumbra

    2008-2012
    oil, beeswax on linen over panel
    13.5 by 24 inches

    3665
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Angel With Lance

    2012
    oil-based ink and paint on linen
    68 by 50 inches

    3666
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan The Martyrdom of St. Paul

    2012
    oil-based ink and paint on linen
    68 by 50 inches

    3668
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Untitled

    2012
    oil-based ink and paint on linen
    68 by 50 inches

    3667
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Yo Mamba

    2008-2012
    oil-based ink and paint on linen
    42 by 96 inches

    3663
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Syzygy

    2008
    gesso, sumi ink wash, clay on paper
    22.5 by 30 inches

    3664
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 1

    wood, caning, glass, rope and magnets
    48 by 48 by 26 inches

    3658
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 1

    wood, caning, glass, rope and magnets
    48 by 48 by 26 inches

    3659
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 1

    wood, caning, glass, rope and magnets
    48 by 48 by 26 inches

    3660
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 1 (detail)

    wood, caning, glass, rope and magnets
    48 by 48 by 26 inches

    3676
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 2

    wood, glass, charcoal, linen and felt
    71 by 71 by 24 inches

    3681
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Divided Form 2 (detail)
    3662
  • Ben Rivera, Frank Ryan Caskets (diptych)

    Frank Ryan
    2005
    oil on linen
    58 by 70 inches each

    3677
 
 

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