Ryan Mendoza
dal 4/3/2002 al 13/4/2002
Segnalato da
4/3/2002
Ryan Mendoza
White Cube, London
For this exhibition, Mendoza has completed a new series of works inspired, in part, by a short story entitled 'Career Opportunities and Fanny Licking' by the writer Irvine Welsh. Mendoza's works are enigmatic, physical and visceral, energetic portraits of anonymous figures that he sources through antique snap shots and discarded memorabilia found by chance.
White Cube is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by American artist Ryan Mendoza. For
this exhibition, Mendoza has completed a new series of works inspired, in part, by a short story
entitled 'Career Opportunities and Fanny Licking' by the writer Irvine Welsh. Mendoza's works are
enigmatic, physical and visceral, energetic portraits of anonymous figures that he sources through
antique snap shots and discarded memorabilia found by chance. His paintings are inert and dense,
obscured images which conjure up both physical and psychological entrapment, emphasized by
their aggressive spatial arrangements and constricted application of paint.
Mendoza treats his found subject matter much like an author creates his characters, situating them
in particular narrative moments, or changing their features through emotionally telling physical
characteristics. In his portrait of 'The General' (2000), for instance, a mouth becomes a void, a black
gash which at once mutes and finalises the image. In other works, scenes depict the moment
before or after violent sexual scenes with domination/subordination games, role-play and child
fetishists.
Mendoza's palette is fairly restricted - flesh tones segue into monochrome full length canvases,
where the figure hovers behind an unspecific grey matter punctuated by the occasional burst of
primary colour. In others, such as 'Training Wheels' (1998) close-ups of faces and bodies are
cropped with a violent eye, the viewer thrust up against the face of the character as if caught in a
fight or physical embrace with the subject itself. In others, bodies are schematised and truncated
with wide, solid limbs executed in thickly applied impasto suggesting the weight of the subjects
caught in their own medium of representation. Mixing historic with contemporary images, Mendoza's
scenes are devoid of the specifics of time and place, floating signifiers without the sinister narrative
stories from which they spring.
By contrast, Mendoza's drawings are vibrant and fluid, executed in a bright, graphic palette on
shiny, plastic surfaces they sketch out sexual fantasies and imaginative flurries into deviant physical
worlds.
Ryan Mendoza lives and works in Naples, Italy. He has recently exhibited at Museo di Arte Moderna
e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy and Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck, Germany.
Preview Tuesday 5th March 6-8pm
A fully illustrated catalogue with a text by Irvine Welsh will be available.
Open
Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-6pm.
White Cube
44 Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6DD