David RYAN et YEK - Double Novella

Press release

Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard is pleased to announce its two solo exhibition of paintings by David Ryan and Yek. The opening reception will be held from 5 to 9 pm, Saturday, March 14. The exhibitions will continue through April 25.

These two artists, key figures of the Pop Abstraction from Las Vegas (Yek currently lives in Singapore) create pure abstract paintings with immediate strong visual impact and presence  produced by rhythmical and dynamic compositions, bright colors and space. However the two artists seek their inspiration in popular culture and everyday life experience.

David Ryan’s bas-relief paintings, composed of superimposed layers of monochrome surfaces with rounded contours are visually identifiable creations. The artist transcribes a two dimentional sketch into three, four superimposed laser cutout panels. Ryan’s work is that of a painter as well as of a sculptor and architect. The visual effects are created by the interplay of superimposed curves, by what is shown or concealed, by the colors squeezed in between two panels, and by the play of light and shadow created by volume. In some new works David Ryan will mix MDF and a new material, Coraforma,  high-density urethane commonly used as insulation. It’s as easy to cut as the fiberboard, a whole lot lighter and only a bit more expensive. We discover new sized works. Most of them are much smaller than before, precisely cut, compact and very punchy. At the same time he develops impressive larger sizes, more complex and rich. David Ryan gives himself the means of developing his work and this exhibition shows that is « diabolically beautiful  wall-relief is sculpture at its space–saving best : Bold enough to fill the wholeroom with its powerful pleasures yet compact enough to hang over the sofa «(1).

In this third one-man-show in Europe, Yek brings us a wholly new kind of work. The exhibition is composed of six small horizontal paintings, not bigger than three feet in length. Very colorful and exquisite, these new paintings are a development from a public space large triptych painting (320 x 460 inches) installed in a new subway station in Singapore. The paintings are configured using cinema screen formats inspired by large West American landscapes. Yek’s colors are faded top to bottom in the image as vivid sensations of landscape. What remains a signature element in this body of work is the artist’s radiant color palette – a perfect balance between the synthetic culture of the Las Vegas strip and the chinese exuberant pop culture from Singapore. These new paintings also have the feeling of being backlit by a fast, almost familiar, eternal light that seems to allude to natural color, but is more akin to computer monitors, television screens, or dashboard glow. Diagrams of various white lines or colored lines cross the colored spaces right through and give a unique rhythmic sense of movement like a musical partition. They also can be viewed as fugitive blurry pictures of dancers on a stage.

In 2008 David Ryan was part of « Phenomenom : New Perspectives in Painting » in Dubai and « Diaspora : The Emergence of Contemporary from The Neon Homeland » in Laguna Art Museum, at Laguna Beach, CA. Yek’s work has recently been acquired by the Albright Knox Art Gallery and has shown in museums and galleries in New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland and Paris and Graz.

(1) David Pagel : « A material change pays off », Los Angeles Times, Friday, August 1, 2008 E13