I make groups of improbably shaped canvases that unify into wall relief compositions. I aim to contribute exuberant, playful work that entangles the variable pursuits of painting and sculpture, reveling in the gloriously demolished distinction between the two mediums.
Made of wood, canvas, paint, and aluminum, my work frequently occupies the traditional space of painting and implements several of the medium’s favored tools: illusory space, line work, and explosive color. By rejecting the conservatism of the rectangle in favor of the freedom and unpredictability of shaped canvases, I incorporate the sculptural notions of form, fit, and negative space that underpin my works’ larger formal identities.
Canvases knock into each other, elbow for space, tumble, float, and coalesce into larger forms. Immaterial shapes appear out of the negative space drawn by the edges of multiple canvases. Slender gaps between canvases absorb light, making dark line-work from the circumstance of object placement.
Shapes, both physical and illusory, interact in multiple dimensions. Inflexible forms made of wooden strainers and tense canvas push into and off one another as they simultaneously click into a crisp yet imperfect whole. Bands of paint often walk the perimeters of my shapes; they measure, pace, and underscore the physicality of each canvas, then break free and extend across a border into a neighboring canvas, creating an image of concurrent division and unification.
Recent works made of stacked canvas-wrapped bars cascade downward and often curve off the wall, extending my interest in challenging normative concepts of what a painting can be, further blurring the line between painting and sculpture. Some in this body of work utilize dyed yarn as a mechanism for introducing line and color to a composition through means other than applying paint, an embrace of the ever-widening expanse of contemporary art materials.
I make work that considers multiplicity, family, community, and division. Connecting fragments into a whole creates an image that probes the radical multiplicity of identity—the neighborhood of the self. My work is made of constituents that may fit or clash, and borders that divide space yet are soft enough to be broken in a drive for unity.
Ryan J. Brady was born in Avenel, New Jersey. He has lived and worked in New York since 2008. Brady received a BFA in Visual and Critical Studies from The School of Visual Arts in 2012, earning The Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Achievement in Multidisciplinary Studio Practices. In 2011, sculptor Steve Keister introduced Brady to Betty Woodman, and he worked in her studio until her death in 2018, an immersion into a life organized around art-making that has informed his practice immensely. In 2020, Brady had a solo show at Equity Gallery in New York, NY, and his work has been included in two-person shows in New York as well as group shows in New York, Brooklyn and Miami. Brady completed a public sculpture in 2011 that continues to stand on the Delanco Camp grounds in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. His work is included in the collection of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY and private collections in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., California, Florida, Colorado and Oregon.
You can find me on Instagram @ryanjbradyart.