Ryan McGinness

RYAN MCGINNESS’ work consists of an amalgam of icons and symbols. Drawing from his background in the design industry, McGinness’ work resolves the clinical graphic aesthetics of media as vast, contemplative fields of intimate meditation. It incorporates strong social commentary on iconography, language, and historical and contemporary symbolism.

“I’m trying to communicate complex and poetic concepts with a cold, graphic, and authoritative visual vocabulary. I concentrate on shape, line, color, and composition to communicate within simplified picture planes. As such, the work resides somewhere between abstraction and representation.”

Ryan McGinness' graphic drawings and personal iconography are replicated, decontextualized, and materialized infinitely throughout his densely layered paintings. 

His works are in the permanent public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Ryan McGinness’ works are in the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Cincinnati Art Museum; MUSAC, Léon, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; The Albright-Knox Art Gallery; The Taguchi Art Collection, Tokyo; The Misumi Collection, Tokyo, Japan; and The Charles Saatchi Collection, among many others. McGinness lives and works in New York, New York.