Ryan McGinness

Born in Virginia Beach, VA 1972 | Lives and works in New York, U.S.A
 

American artist Ryan McGinness draws original iconic symbols and uses them to create networks of images with surprising juxtapositions and endless associations. The artist constructs and describes his world using references to different time periods, cultures, and pictorial codesets. His visual universe is limitless.
 

The artist is fascinated by the reduction of form and the manipulation of context, which alters the subject of representation. Intuitively, the selected fragments of art history in the visual environment function as guiding stars within the kaleidoscope of composite image material. In McGinness’ hands, the initial purpose of anonymously created universal symbols erodes, and the shape’s bare aesthetic remains. Forms act as building blocks in McGinness’ complex paintings, sculptures and installations, which contain references to the artist's own life, pop culture, and art history.
 

McGinness grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, ensconced in the local surfing and skateboarding culture, and studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has also worked as an assistant curator at The Andy Warhol Museum. The artist has had exhibitions all over the world, and his works can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Saatchi Collection in London; the Taguchi Art Collection in Japan, and The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.