Unpainting: The Ethereal Art of Ryan Crotty
Ryan Crotty's latest paintings trick your eyes as the canvas is not transparent and the surface is not emitting light.
Ryan Crotty’s latest paintings are on view at the High Noon Gallery in New York through August 28th. Despite what your eyes are telling you right now, this canvas is not transparent, and the surface is not emitting light. Crotty has just found a new way to paint.
A Blind Rush, 2019, 14″x11″
Bait the Hooks, 2019 (detail)
Crotty’s primary tool is a customized piece of plexiglass that he uses like a squeegee to scrape paint across the surface of a canvas. Where the squeegee presses against the unseen wood support structure behind the canvas, the paint is almost entirely removed while the center of the canvas flexes under the pressure to accept greater degrees of paint. This process is repeated several times with multiple colors and layers to create a coating thick enough to produce a glass-like surface with other color transitions. You don’t ever feel like you’re looking AT a Ryan Crotty painting… you feel like you’re looking THROUGH it. He produces an “x-ray” effect that reveals the unseen skeleton of the structure behind the canvas, while ALSO producing a beautiful painting on its surface.
I Willingly Offer Myself, 2019, 20″x24″
Grave This on Your Memory, 2019, 24″x20″
Ryan prefers to purchase the store-bought pre-stretched canvases where the low-quality frames are m...
Ryan Crotty’s latest paintings are on view at the High Noon Gallery in New York through August 28th. Despite what your eyes are telling you right now, this canvas is not transparent, and the surface is not emitting light. Crotty has just found a new way to paint.
A Blind Rush, 2019, 14″x11″
Bait the Hooks, 2019 (detail)
Crotty’s primary tool is a customized piece of plexiglass that he uses like a squeegee to scrape paint across the surface of a canvas. Where the squeegee presses against the unseen wood support structure behind the canvas, the paint is almost entirely removed while the center of the canvas flexes under the pressure to accept greater degrees of paint. This process is repeated several times with multiple colors and layers to create a coating thick enough to produce a glass-like surface with other color transitions. You don’t ever feel like you’re looking AT a Ryan Crotty painting… you feel like you’re looking THROUGH it. He produces an “x-ray” effect that reveals the unseen skeleton of the structure behind the canvas, while ALSO producing a beautiful painting on its surface.
I Willingly Offer Myself, 2019, 20″x24″
Grave This on Your Memory, 2019, 24″x20″
Ryan prefers to purchase the store-bought pre-stretched canvases where the low-quality frames are m...
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