Ryan M Reynolds

Last Saturday, February 10th, I had the chance to get out to the B. Sakata Garo gallery in downtown Sacramento. There I was introduced to a collection of recent paintings and drawings by artist Ryan M. Reynolds. The majority of his works could be divided into three categories- freeways, yards, and scenes of people in nature.

In the freeway scenes, cars, signs and buildings travel into the canvas.  The cars are painted with rough, patchy strokes, alternating in direction and size. The effect is something like a vibration, a sense that these cars, though not  tightly rendered to capture the curvature and smooth surface one might think of a car having, have a visual truth to them. The road is painted with the same feeling. They both rumble, like a freeway would. The world around the cars and the road is painted far more simply in broad strokes of color. The signs are indistinct, the buildings even more so. Again, it captures the very real but not literal quality of how one would takes these things in from a car window, quick glimpses as they pass by. The palettes are overall muted, something that furthers the sense of this mundane these familiar scenes.

The yard scenes are different. Everything is still, quiet and clearly painted, but it breaths with the suggestion of life that might be happening just beyond the building walls and fences. Colorful toys and kiddie pools, green lawns, a hose left unwound, warm concrete and not too distant rooftops- these images are simple, warm, vivid, yet somewhat strange and nostalgic at the same time. There's an overall sense of emptiness- the objects are small and far away, the sky is big, and no one is around. Things have moved but aren't moving in this moment. It's not just the recognizable image of a summertime suburbia for someone like me who grew up in that environment, but also the viscerally recognizable feeling. Scenes like these feel like peering out the back window of my childhood memories, though they aren't mine.

Then there's the scenes of people out in nature- in one, we look from a distance upon a beautiful stream and rocky bank populated by people playing in the water. The biggest difference is the presence of nature and people, of course. These scenes have quite a lot more movement,  owed to the diagonals in the landscape and the people caught in action. Still, there is a sense of distance, with the people far away, and the generalization of the plant life and stones. As all the others have,  these gave me the feeling of a memory that doesn't belong me.

My sister who was with me as I viewed the show remarked that these sort of paintings always gave her the feeling that she'd been there before, and it's a feeling I echo. It's not just that these images are recognizable, but why they're recognizable, that I think contributes to the somewhat surreal feeling these have. An American freeway looks like an American freeway anywhere in America- maybe even other parts of the world. An American yard looks like an American yard. I had a blue kiddie pool, but basically, it's the same symbols. These paintings reframe the mundane qualities of modern western civilization and communicate them like a memory, distant and familiar, warm, quiet, and just a little sad.

This show will be up until March 3rd, so I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.