“Mindscapes: Paintings by Ryo Toyonaga” Exhibition
Baruch College/Sidney Mishkin Gallery
This event has ended.
Featuring the artist’s most recent work, Mindscapes includes 13 large paintings and three sculptures. Cast in bronze and aluminum, the sculptures in the exhibition depict Toyonaga’s frightening yet whimsical creatures. These grotesque creatures also inhabit his paintings; they are both remarkable and almost scientific in their technical precision and attention to detail.
Toyonaga’s fantastical world embodies a compelling array of creatures and cities that transports the viewer to a new place and time. From elements of Surrealism and pop culture ─ combined with influence from the late paintings of Philip Guston ─ Toyonaga invents this new terrain. Yet, he arrives at his forms by fishing them out from the opaque and teeming ocean of his subconscious.
Toyonaga “sees” the images fixed in his mind before he captures them with his brush. They evolve as he works. His creatures have an affinity with Joan Miró’s biomorphic personages, and they sometimes display the raw or grotesque quality of some of Jean Dubuffet’s visceral forms. Like Dubuffet, Toyonaga rebelled against the conventions of “high art.” He says of his imagery, “They are creatures that are living in the ocean of my sub-conscience. At first, I don’t see them, but I know they will emerge.” His images capture us with their terrifying energy mitigated by a smiling playfulness.
Media
Schedule
from May 09, 2013 to June 14, 2013
The Gallery will be closed for Memorial Day, May 25 – 27.
Opening Reception on 2013-05-08 from 18:00 to 20:00