RYAN McGINNESS | Women: New (Re)Presentations: Quint Contemporary Art: 7547 Girard Avenue

Quint Contemporary Art (QCA) is very pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by New York–based artist Ryan McGinness. This is the third solo show of the artist’s work at QCA. In this exhibition, Women: New (Re)Presentations, McGinness expands upon his ever-growing language of symbols with a concentrated yet expansive body of work based upon the traditional academic drawing of the female nude figure. The exhibition will open with a public reception on Saturday, September 15th, from 6 to 8 PM. The artist will be in attendance.

Based on figure drawings from life models, McGinness’ Women series captures the essence of beauty in its simplicity of form. He explains, “Two parallel desires drive these new Women drawings: My desire to simplify and iconify the underlying visually logical geometries inherent in my figure drawings in order to better understand my subject matter; and my desire to embrace and capture the purely aesthetic experience of graceful curves and sensual forms inherent in my models.”

Throughout art history, artists have explored the idea of beauty through the use of the female nude. In contemporary art, the idea of this historically male gaze has been explored and questioned. McGinness addresses this idea of the male gaze by collecting visual data from his models and then rendering them oblique through a process of reduction and distillation to elemental forms. McGinness’ iconic drawings speak to the viewer more than to the raw nature of the female nude.

The exhibition will feature a range of works within the Women series: from process sketches, works on paper, and cyanotypes to porcelain-baked enamel works on steel, fluorescent glass bead paintings, and the silkscreens McGinness uses to make his paintings.

McGinness has exhibited internationally, most recently in New York, Madrid, Los Angeles, Aspen, and Helsinki. McGinness’ work is part of many major museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, and The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.