OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, April 12, 7-9pm

Keeping Time invites long-time admirers, as well as the uninitiated, to become familiar with the full scope of Paul Ryan’s career thus far. Ryan’s paintings have nearly always carried a significant connection to concurrent and past events in his own life, as well as his career-long interest in critical and cultural theory. In his earliest work as a graduate student at VCU, Ryan first explored non-objective painting and discovered new ways of thinking about art from the university’s faculty. Over the years, Ryan loosened his approach to abstraction, allowing for forms that are both implicitly and explicitly loaded with meaning. His canvases, though seemingly abstract, become increasingly symbolic and conceptually-oriented over the decades, as is the case with his most recent series, which explores consumerism and his own relationship with modern capitalistic practices.