Ry McCullough Archives - longlistshort

A Collaborative Gallery Exhibition- “small_bars: To Activate a Landscape”

Art, Artists, Ohio Art Shows, Performance Art, Photographers / Photography, Printmaking, Sound Art

Jul 242024

The artists who make up small_bars, (Ry McCullough and Nick Satinover), are looking for participants for their new collaborative project– small_bars: To Activate A Landscape. Throughout July they are posting pairs of instructions, like the two above. You can choose to do any (or all) of the activities, in any order.

All contributions will be included and credited in a gallery exhibition at the Farmer Family Gallery at Ohio State University-Lima this August through October 2024, as well as the online archive of the project, and a small_bars printed publication.

Head over to their Instagram page to see all the different activities. Follow them to see what comes next, and send your submissions!

Sarasota Art Shows- Ry McCullough’s “SUPERPOSITIONS” at Art Center Sarasota

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Florida Art Shows, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Sarasota, Sculptors / Sculpture

Sep 282023

“Paolo and the Bomb”, 2023, Assemblage of diverse materials

“Lions Escape from the Zoo or Portrait of Andy Kaufman”, 2023, Assemblage of diverse materials

Center work- “Hive, Helmet, and Butter Brick”, 2023, Assemblage of Diverse Materials

“Colossus in Repose”, 2023, Assemblage of diverse materials

“All Their Friends Are Rabbits”, 2023, Assemblage of diverse materials

After visiting Ry McCullough in his studio back in May to see what he was working on, I was very excited to finally see his exhibition SUPERPOSITIONS at Art Center Sarasota. His mixed media sculptures capture the imagination as the viewer imagines the connections between the objects in the work. The titles provide often humorous clues, but make sure to check out his Instagram for more background on his inspirations.

About the work from the center-

McCullough’s practice engages the fields of printmaking, creative writing, drawing, sound, and sculpture to create unique systems that probe the margins and boundaries of how art crafts language and communicates meaning. Using these systems of making as a guide for a range of media processes, they articulate parameters that can expand or collapse, generating opportunities for discovery in thematic investigations of the philosophical, abstract, and fluid state of being across time and space. SUPERPOSITIONS is inspired by an affection for the traditions of still life, modernist abstraction, and humor.

Artist Statement-

The SUPERPOSITIONS project comprises works of collage, sculpture, and wall-bound hybrids that exist between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. The tension between these two spatial expressions is celebrated within this project through the playful application of collage. More than a tradition of material operations, McCullough views collage as a bundle of behaviors, a toolbox, and a signifier of fragmentation that forms an ethos of revision and reorganization.

McCullough is attracted to humble materials such as plywood and paper, concrete and plaster, foam and found things, essential stuff that requires intervention to establish meaningful presence through the relations it forms to other components in each work. The formal language is idiosyncratic; combinations of hard and soft edges, geometric and organic form, and a buffet of color with a penchant for balance. These works are propelled by the forces of potential change, by the energies of process, and by developing a poetic and clumsy status of unfinishedness.

This exhibition closes on Saturday, 9/30/23.

24 Hands Printmaking Collective- Florida Gulf Coast

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Fiber Arts, Florida Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Pinellas County, Printmaking, Tampa, Tarpon Springs

Jul 202023

Polly E. Perkins, “Woodstork Portrait”, 2022 from Ferman Center for the Arts

24 Hands is a printmaking collective of Florida Gulf Coast printmakers founded by Marjorie Greene Graff. The group has regular exhibitions throughout the year at various locations in the area.

Recently a group of their artists were showing work at The Ferman Center for the Arts, on the University of Tampa’s campus. Below are a few selections from that exhibition.

For more information on Polly E. Perkins, whose work is in the first image, check out her Instagram.

Linda Dee Guy, “Botanical Shroud”, 2021, acrylic, Inkjet print, Goldleaf on canvas

Linda Dee Guy, “Nucleus”, 2021

Linda Dee Guy, “Seascape”, 2021

For more work by Linda Dee Guy, check out her website and Instagram.

Serhat Tanyolacar, “Untitled”, 2020, Laser engraved relief print

Serhat Tanyolacar, “Untitled”, 2020, Laser engraved relief print

For more work by Serhat Tanyolacar, check out his website.

Ry McCullough, “Meditations in Orange”, 2021, Pochoir, serigraphy, gouache, watercolor, vinyl, gaffers tape on okawara

For more of Ry McCullough’s work, check out his website and Instagram.

Currently at Brooker Creek Preserve’s Education Center in Tarpon Springs is Nature Inspired, another exhibition of work by the 24 Hands collective.

From the exhibition-

For “Nature Inspired”, the artists visited Brooker Creek Preserve in March 2022 and March 2023 to strategize the exhibit and hike around the Preserve. Their love for Brooker Creek and nature has been inspiring and their work represents a variety of approaches from comical to realist to aesthetic abstraction. The exhibition includes prints by: Holly Bird, Saumitra Chandratreya, Tyrus Clutter, Elizabeth Coachman, Marjorie Greene Graff, Mary-Helen Horne, Stephen Littlefield, Ry McCullough, Polly E. Perkins, Christine Renc-Carter, and Rachel Stewart.

Below is work from the exhibition by Mary-Helen Horne. You can also find her work on Instagram.

Mary-Helen Horne, “Floating on Air”, 2023, Monoprint with drypoint, relief and pochoir

Nature Inspired has been extended until 8/13/23. It’s a great show and a chance to check out the natural surroundings that helped create the work.

Florida Art Shows- Art + Design Faculty Exhibition at University of Tampa’s Scarfone/Hartley Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Digital Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Florida Art Shows, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Tampa

Feb 202023

Pictured L to R: Peter Cotroneo, Alexander Nixon (foot), and Joshua Haddad

Pictured: Molly Evans (sketches installation) and Kendra Frorup

Pictured L to R: Chris Valle; Emma Quintana and Rick Hanberry; Joseph Scarce

This is the last week to check out the Art+Design Faculty Exhibition at University of Tampa’s art gallery, Scarfone Hartley. It’s a wonderful chance to check out the talent that is teaching at the school as well as some impressive work.

Artists included: Jaime Aelavanthara, Peter Cotroneo, Molly Evans, Kendra Frorup, Corey George, Jennifer Guest, Joshua Haddad, Ry McCullough, Samantha Modder, Alexander Nixon, Eric Ondina, Angelina Parrino, Emma Quintana, Joseph Scarce, and Chris Valle.

Below are more selections from the exhibition-

Ry McCullough’s “Themes for a Left Handed Pitcher” from Skyway 20/21

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Florida Art Shows, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Sound Art, Tampa

Dec 162022

“Themes for a Left-Handed Pitcher”, 2021: “Still Life with Left-Handed Pitcher (04-06)”, 2021. serigraphy, pochoir, collage, acrylic ink, gouache on paper; “Left-Handed Pitcher Still Life (II)”, 2021. particle board, acrylic ink, concrete, polymer clay; “Perfect Games (Theme for a Left-Handed Pitcher)”, 2021. projected sound from single speaker. 9:00 min. (infinite loop)

While at Dunedin Fine Art Center to hear Ry McCullough’s talk, I was reminded of seeing this work at the USF Contemporary Art Museum last year as part of Skyway 20/21: A Contemporary Collaboration. The discussion was great and touched on a lot of interesting topics, especially around his use of collage.

From the gallery’s wall plaque about Themes for a Left-Handed Pitcher–

Inspired by the perfect game Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Sandy Koufax threw against the Chicago Cubs in 1965, Themes for a Left Handed Pitcher engages compositional fielding of the domestic pitcher and black and white balls in a callback and comparative dialogue between sculptural objects and works on paper. Inviting playful and participatory discovery, the project includes an amplified palindromic sound score and a zine, which are both available to download. Interspersed with abstracted baseball references, the project evokes a change-up between the fabricated and found forms, the known and the unknown.

On McCullough’s website you can find the downloadable zine and the audio file mentioned in the description above and its a chance to check out more of his impressive collage pieces. For his most recent work, also check out his Instagram.

In addition to his independent practice, he is part of the collaborative project, small_bars, with artist Nick Satinover.

From the small_bars information page about the project-

Within their collaborative practice they explore the structural authority of their band name moniker, small_bars. This ambiguous name serves as an all-encompassing banner which simultaneously referencing pixels on a screen, lines of type of a letter press, halftone processes, and the physical clubs and venues their former bands played. As small_bars, McCullough and Satinover are able to generate a collection of collateral materials such as audio recordings, videos, printed ephemera, performative events, and structural arrangements, all of which support and expand the notion of what the moniker suggests. This collaborative effort seeks to use the form of a band-like entity to create a space where the acts of publishing, printing and performance co-exist.

Skyway 20/21 at USF Contemporary Art Museum

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Florida Art Shows, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture

Aug 142021

Casey McDonough “the immeasurability of this cosmological collider”, 2021

Casey McDonough “the immeasurability of this cosmological collider”, 2021 (detail)

Casey McDonough “the immeasurability of this cosmological collider”, 2021 (another view)

Skyway 20/21: A Contemporary Collaboration, is the second iteration of a joint exhibition across four institutions that highlights contemporary art created in the Central Florida region. Artists selected by a jury are from five counties- Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee, and Sarasota. The exhibitions are an excellent sampling of the work being made in the Tampa Bay area.

The works shown in this post are from the exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. I’ve included links for these artists as well as those not pictured.