ART CITIES:Paris-Matthew Ronay
Matthew Ronay’s sculptures bring together a mix of fancifully colored elements that resemble the cogs of machinery or dripping liquids. Ronay’s works can recall the ceramics of Ken Price and Ron Nagle, both of whom frequently rely on bright hues and combinations of unlike forms in their sculptures. For Ronay, this format becomes a way to evoke the nonsensicality of all the useless objects you can buy, as well as the way organic and inorganic elements are so often combined these days.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Perrotin Gallery Archive
In “Ramus”, Matthew Ronay’s solo exhibition at Perrotin Gallery in Paris, are on presentation new sculptures. Melding vocabularies of modernist abstraction and ritualistic objects, Matthew Ronay’s sculptures and enigmatic installations express the primacy of the handmade object. Suggesting the transcendent qualities of our bodies and the world we inhabit, Ronay’s meticulously crafted works embody modes of visual production that remind us that objects are not merely representations of a material culture of mass production, but rather are sites of projection, acting as locations which embody and reflect our inception and corporeal struggle. “My inspiration in science is probably due in large part to my misreading of it,” Ronay says. “I use science or biology to kind of see and back up other inclinations that I might have. For instance, when two people come together erotically, in that moment of two things unifying, the two parts kind of die and make one part”. Made primarily with basswood, dye, and gouache but often incorporating such materials as steel, plastic and cotton thread, Ronay’s sculptures, reliefs and installations formally draw on surrealism, psychedelia, and science fiction. Inspired by a deep appreciation for botany, mycology, and biology, fields that explore parts of the physical world that are often hidden from humans’ perception but shape our experiences in ways both subtle and profound, Ronay seeks to create “Something that looks as if it’s grown, that these aren’t objects that were necessarily made by a human, but that they’ve grown themselves”. Their vivid palettes combine hues from across the spectrum that seem to vibrate and hum, the forms draw their inspiration from biological structures and their reproductive and evolutionary processes and the shamanistic symbols are another motif familiar to the New York-based artist, who takes pages from psychedelia and surrealism, as well as folk and non-Western art.
Info: Perrotin Gallery, 76 Rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration 17/3-26/5/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.perrotin.com
