Ryan Syrell

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Ryan Syrell is a New York and Maryland-based painter who also teaches and writes about art.

Education

2017
MFA, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

2006
BFA, State University of New York at Purchase, Purchase, NY

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2021
Late Light, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2019
Book of Flowers, Springsteen Gallery, Baltimore, MD
New Moon, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2018
VT —> NY, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Adventures Close to Home, Bromo Seltzer Tower, Baltimore, MD

2017
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA

2014
Roughed In, John Fonda Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Addenda: Rosy-Fingered Dawn at Louse Point, ReInstitute, Baltimore, MD

2013
Painted Woods, Current Space, Front Gallery, Baltimore, MD

Selected Group Exhbition

2021
Bethesda Painting Awards, Gallery B, Bethesda, MD
Bloom, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2020
FAIR, with Sydney Shen and Keith Varadi, Springsteen Gallery, NADA
Phone Call, curated by Ginevra Shay, Rose Arcade + Transformer, various locations
20 20 25, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2018
To Find Home, curated by Zach Wampler, HappyluckyNo.1, with Doron Langberg, Sarah Muehlbauer, and Beverly Semmes, Brooklyn, NY
Hot Hot Hot, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Sondheim Semi-Finalist exhibition, Baltimore, MD

2017
Transformer Auction, Katzen Center, American University, Washington DC
Whateverbeing, curated by Owen Duffy, Present Co., Brooklyn, NY
Sondheim Prize Alumni Show, curated by Cara Ober and Stewart Watson, Area 405, Baltimore, MD
Emerge, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
WORK, Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA
Washington Project for the Arts Auction, Uline Arena, Washington, DC

2016
Art, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
InLight, with Jon Rehwholdt, Peter Baldes, and Greg Piwonka, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA
Horse Apartment, FAB Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
CURRENT Art Fair with Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Emerge, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
The Heat Goes on Where the Hand Has Been, Richmond, VA
University Combine, Capital One West Creek Campus, Richmond, VA

2015
Real Rocks are Heavy and Hard to Find with James Bouché, Gallery Four, Baltimore, MD
This Just In, Depot Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Sondheim Prize Finalist Exhibition, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
The Art of Caring, fundraiser auction for CASA, Area 405, Baltimore, MD

2014
Baltimore Contemporary Cross-Section, Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan, CT
I Like It in the City, Gallery CA, Baltimore, MD
Earth and Sky, Carspecken Scott Gallery, Wilmington, DE
PMF V, organized by Open Space, D Center, Baltimore, MD
Select 2014, curated by Mera Rubell, Artisphere, Arlington, VA
Select 2014 (preview), presented by the WPA, hosted by Marianne Boesky, New York, NY

2013
Transformer Art Auction, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC
Regarding Territory, curated by Ginevra Shay, Furthermore, Washington, DC
Good Light, Current Space, Baltimore, MD
Ball of Worms, benefit auction for R.M. O’Brien, Metro Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Blonde Art Books Tour, curated by Alex Ebstein and Seth Adelsberger, Nudashank, Baltimore, MD
Blonde Art Books Tour, curated by Indie Photobook Library, Furthermore, Washington, DC
Out of Order, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD
PMF IV, organized by Open Space, D Center, Baltimore, MD
Odd Volume, curated by Aimee Lusty, Booklyn, Brooklyn, NY

2012
moreLANDS, curated by Brent Holland Baker, Penthouse Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Souvenir, curated by Thomas Marquet, Camel Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
Everything Is Festival III, multiple venues, Los Angeles, CA
All-Visual Boston II, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
Narrative Ability, curated by Carl Gunhouse, Camel Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
All-Visual Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

2011
All-Visual LA, Los Angeles, CA

2010
Space Jam, curated Aimee Lusty, Union Gallery, New York, NY
Everything Is Festival I, Los Angeles, CA
It’s a Beautiful Thing, curated by Bill Hill, Jane Haslem Gallery, Washington, DC
Sweet/Awesome/Rad, The Hamilton, Burlington, VT

2009
Wham City Crystal Skull, De Leon White Art Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Chinati Foundation Arts Festival, Marfa, TX
So Many Organs, Current Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2008
Baltimore Round Robin, Pozen Center, Mass Art, Boston, MA
Baltimore Round Robin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI
Street Cred, Last House on the Left Gallery, Oakland, CA

2007
Know Your Ghost, Mama Buzz Gallery, Oakland, CA

2006
Everson Biennial, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY

 

Awards

2021
Maryland State Arts Council, Artist Grant
Bethesda Painting Awards Finalist

2016-17
VCUarts Graduate Research Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

2016
David Wurtzel Travel Grant, Florence, Italy

2015
Sondheim Prize Finalist, Baltimore, MD

2014
Individual Artist Award, Sculpture. Maryland State Arts Council, Baltimore, MD

I’ve been making paintings of the intimate, domestic spaces of people who are close to me. The paintings grow out of our running dialogues and exchanges, our histories and trajectories. They depict bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, desks, and dressers. They seek out and celebrate a cluttered and cacophonous intimacy. They articulate keys, cups, plants, computers, paintings, pens, shadows, movements, and absences with equal, non-hierarchical significance.

I try to paint in a way that articulates a sense of movement, interconnectivity, and slippage with regard to language and perception. I am interested in scaling up and inhabiting the moment of the shock of seeing—the fraction of a second during which the registration between sensation and language has not yet taken hold. Color and rhythm are deployed in ways that keep images from becoming too cohesive or legible. Some of these paintings can feel like accretion of interjections—pictures within pictures, frames within frames, rarely a dominant center, but a rhizome-like web of varying densities and intensities.

These paintings are simultaneously anxious and joyful, manic and celebratory. As much as these spaces can feel overwhelming or claustrophobic, they can also by turns be calm, absurd, playful, and comedic. I am interested in a form of painting where it may be difficult or impossible to say what is “happening”, because the thing that is happening is simply an imbuing of vitality into the mundane; finding, amplifying, and creating beauty without ignoring the complexity and anxiety of the time.