Ryan Brown American, b. 1977

Working in whatever medium best suits his message, Ryan Brown has produced performances, paintings, sculptures, photographic series, and installations that both honor and interrogate modern and contemporary art and artists, as well as the historical narratives, manifestos, and market systems upon which they rely.

He uses satire and mimicry to send up what he perceives as the preciousness, arrogance, and politics underlying the presentation and consideration of art. In a series of slumped, intentionally ragged-looking mixed media paintings, he displays marred versions of modern works taken from art history books, whose materials and mode of production he deliberately mislabels.

Brown has also photographed and filmed himself performing as such famous artists as Jackson Pollock, calling attention to the frequent blurring of truth and myth in the record of an artist’s life and work.

In the latest series of works, Ryan Brown is interested primarily in the representation and revaluation of found material which has been discarded, lost or no longer of use. Things that no longer interest us or serve an immediate purpose fall away and are soon lost, never to return again. To intervene in this process, is to reverse this dis-integration and bring new life through active revitalization and creative transformation. The painting and objects Brown has created serve as mediations on the nature of meaning, value and utility. In this case the content is revived rather than self-generated.