Paul Ryan writes about his 33-year survey, dual venue exhibition on view at Mary Baldwin’s Hunt Gallery and at the Staunton Augusta Art Center galleries in the Smith Center: “The work in this exhibition represents five series of paintings completed between 1987 and 2018. Additionally, two paintings from my graduate school years are included — one from 1985 and the other from 1986 — as this time was vital to my development as an artist interested in aesthetics and art’s conceptual capacity. The title of the show, In Dialogue, refers to my belief that art is always engaged in conversation — with the artist, the viewer, with other art, the art world, and with the larger world. I decided on a synchronous installation rather than a chronological one for two reasons: the exhibition is at two different venues, and a chronological installation would have perhaps suggested too much of a divide, possibly implying a significant break where there is none; and a synchronous installation offers more playful and surprising juxtapositions, though at the risk of the installation looking like a group show.”