Walter Maciel Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition entitled Circadian Rhythm by Los Angeles based artist Frank Ryan. The show will include new paintings on canvas and wood panel.

Unlike his previous work that captured exterior landscapes inhabited by random individuals in Southern California, Ryan’s new work exposes his private space with the emphasis on intimate surroundings of his bedroom.  The primary theme in this body of work is his unmade bed shown as both the main subject and the back drop for staged still lives.  Several smaller paintings document the daily changes of the tattered sheets shown in folded patterns across the mattress and often captured with a personal article or pet.  Working from direct observation, Ryan’s interpretations of his bed become a form of figure drawing but without the actual figure the viewer is left with the implications of the human presence evident from the rumpled sheets, opened drawers and scattered belongings.   Each painting depicts a new day and when viewed all together they present a unique cycle that is at once restricted yet is always changing.  

Larger canvases portray the bed as a backdrop for specifically placed props such as florescent light fixtures.  Ryan sets up his bedroom as a type of topography, creating still lives that enhance the sculptural qualities of the messy surfaces.  The light sources physically intersect the layers of bedding to cast intentional areas of shadows and luminosity.  In some of the works, the fluorescent lights are placed outside of the room seen through an open window to distort the pictorial field.  These paintings accentuate the tradition aspects of still life painting--color, light, form and perspective--in relation to the documentary interpretations of the smaller paintings. The conceptual notion of who inhabits the bed fades as the viewer analyzes the positioning and context of the articles in the room.  The demeanor of the beds shift as well to appear light hearted and breezy in some paintings and haunting and ominous in others.  The beds become a point of natural origin and destination where we simultaneously arrive and return each day.

Ryan received his MFA in Painting and Drawing from UCLA in 2006 and his BFA in Painting at Sonoma State University in 2002.  He studied at the prestigious Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Italy. Ryan was included in the LA Weekly Biennial in 2006 which featured the work of promising MFA graduates in Southern California and most recently was included in the group exhibition Political Draw at Walter Maciel Gallery.  He has also been included in solo and group exhibitions in other galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Rosa, CA.  Ryan’s work is included in many public and private collections in the US.   This will be his second solo show at Walter Maciel Gallery.