Ryan McGinness (Past Project)

53 Women, 2011
1111 Prospect Street (back of building)
18' x 108'

Ryan McGinness' mural, 53 Women, is boldly colorful. The bodies of 53 women are broken down into simplified forms in a variety of colors, sizes and positions. The figures are launched forward by being starkly contrasted against a black background. The images are uniquely stylized, yet provocative in nature, features common of McGinness' work.

“This new body of work is a continuation of my established and disciplined image-making that strives to employ the aesthetic of the anonymously created universal sign symbol. Two parallel desires drive these new Women drawings: my desire to simplify and iconify the underlying and visually logical geometries inherent in my figure drawings in order to better understand my subject matter; and my desire to embrace and capture the purely aesthetic experience of graceful curves and sensual forms inherent in my models.”
 
Ryan McGinness draws from the universal language of contemporary street signage, logos, and advertising to create his own prolific and individualistic vocabulary through graphic drawings. McGinness was born in 1972 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was heavily involved with the skateboard, surf, and garage band culture of the time. He received his BA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was an Andrew Carnegie Scholar. McGinness is interested in making drawings that subvert the aesthetic of the anonymously created universal sign symbols. His images are uniquely stylized and often provocative in nature. He seeks to simplify forms and symbols into a variety of colors, sizes and positions. Working in a variety of mediums painting, sculpture, and installation, he creates a world that is both deeply personal and collectively relatable.

His work is in the permanent public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati; the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amersterdam; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain; and the Misumi Collection, Japan. McGinness lives and works in New York City, New York.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann