Ryan McLaughlin's paintings feature fragmented words and crumbled pictograms hovering against dusty visual fields that fuse interpretations of still-life, landscape, and abstraction. Toggling between subjective symbols and known signifiers, McLaughlin works to extract a complex coherence between psychic unease and disambiguated aesthetic pleasure. His rich and varied surfaces present an ostensibly traditional format, one grounded in color, texture, shape, but with chance registrations that simultaneously suggest and dissect the visual proposition. It is from this familiar locus that McLaughlin builds his idiosyncratic cache of signage that navigates a fugitive space between aesthetic tension, definition, and playful provocation.
McLaughlin (born 1980, Worcester, MA) received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Solo exhibitions include Impreza Earth, David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; TraffiQ, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London; Lacus PM, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; Raisins, Laurel Gitlen, New York City; and Barbara (I and II) at Lüttgenmeijer, Berlin. McLaughlin's work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at Sperone Westwater, Metro Pictures, Sikkema Jenkins, all New York; Tanya Leighton, Berlin; Off Vendome, Dusseldorf.