RYAN ROTH: RECYCLED DREAMS

Inevitable Objects is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by Ryan Roth,  a South Carolina-based contemporary artist.  Roth’s paintings and  multimedia artworks investigate the empty promises and contradictions  associated with the received ideal of career advancement and corporate  achievement.  His work contrasts images of family life and parenthood,  one part of the masculine side of the American Dream, with its  simultaneous goal of accumulating wealth and influence.

Roth’s  chosen point of departure is the traditional genre known as Vanitas  painting, developed by Dutch Baroque painters, then practiced across  Europe since the 17th and 18th centuries.  The genre is easily  recognized by the frequent depictions of skulls and flowers (sometimes  wilting or even rotting), along with other more obscure symbols,  deployed to portray the futility of pleasure and human achievement along  with the certainty of death. The name of the genre comes from  Ecclesiastes 12:8, "Vanity of Vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.”   Ultimately the traditional intent of the pictures was to point the  viewer away from the transient mortal existence, and toward higher  ideals, such as a deepened faith and devotion to God. 

Located  in America’s Bible Belt, it is perhaps fitting that Roth feels drawn to  the pious Vanitas tradition, however his version is uniquely  contemporary.  Roth unites the Baroque with the sunny palette of Jeff  Koons and Will Cotton, and symbolism recalling Rene Magritte, Frida  Kahlo, and Salvator Dali.  

In Never Hurt a Fly Roth presents a technicolor burst of flowers, some based on life, some  based on textile and wallpaper designs, set above a vessel in the form  of an argyle sock and wingtip shoe.  The shoe seems to be stomping a  child’s toy bunny.  A dead housefly shares the foreground.  The child’s  toy is significant, as Roth has described how the birth of his daughter  was the catalyst for his appreciation of “the delicate and fleeting nature of life.”  The artist explained, “I  use flowers as a metaphor for the short-lived nature of success and the  pursuit of professional advancement. I hope to create a sense of beauty  and vitality, while also prompting viewers to reflect on the deeper  meaning and significance of their own lives and careers."

In Thank You for Your Service Roth  depicts a lush floral bouquet captioned with a pre-printed note from  which the painting’s title is drawn.  In place of a vase, the flowers  are found springing from beneath the crown of a fleshless skull.  The  surface on which the skull sits is toned deep red.  The entire image is  created using such dark tones that at first glance the picture is hard  to make out.  There are only shadows and no highlights.  The work  explores the relationship between employer and employee in a capitalist  society: the icy interface between corporate and corporeal.  A  mass-market token memorializes the exchange of a day’s wages for a life,  or at least for a lifetime of shifts.

The use of the skull to conjure these hefty themes has a long history. Plato said, “those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead.”  This idea has been expressed in visual arts for millennia in the form of memento mori,  usually consisting of depictions of skulls, or bones (or both) in  conspicuous locations as a persistent reminder to the viewer of the  inevitability of death.  Like artists before him such as Dürer, Cezanne,  Van Gogh, Picasso, and Damien Hirst, Roth has discovered powerful new  relevance in enduring imagery. 

Ryan  Roth was born in 1976, and grew up in Georgia and South Carolina.   After earning an MFA from the University of Georgia, he worked with art  galleries and museums in New York.  Roth teaches studio art at the Fine  Arts Center in Greenville, SC and has also taught at Ohio State  University, Denison University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and  University of Georgia.  Roth’s work has been exhibited across the United  States as well as in Europe and Asia, and can be found in both public  and private collections.  This is his first exhibition with Inevitable  Objects.