Y Gallery is pleased to present Various Small Lots by Ryan Brown, his second solo show at the gallery. The drawings and photographs in this series conjure a suggestion of an object which may have been but is no longer present. The large drawings adopt the format of the art auction catalog as a metaphor for the exhausted, expired and re-contextualized original. The rectangular images within the neutral space of the jagged picture frame serve as familiar strangers that one recognizes but remain anonymous questioning their existence. Monumental in scale yet seemingly delicate in nature the deteriorating pages appear to be either on the verge of becoming trash or historical treasure. Brown employs a wide range of methods and mediums in order to transform the material from new to old thus mimicking the aging effects of time.

The photographs offer a curious semi-historical glimpse into the creative process. If the drawings imply the afterlife of the authentic original, the photographic stills seem to witness its place of origin. Brown stages and reenacts these quintessential artist studio shots that further emphasize a dislocation of time and provide little information as to the identity of the artist. Various Small Lots balances the tensions of conflicts of opposites vis-a-vis representation, abstraction, present, absent, real, imaginary, willful, accidental, not by tranversing the space between but by resting at the point where they converge.

Ryan Brown was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1977. He studied Fine Arts at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in New York. After graduating with honors in 2006 he was invited to participate in the European Exchange Academy in Beelitz, Germany. Ryan Brown has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions including “Peekskill Project” organized by The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art; “Ex-Libris” at Adam Baumgold Gallery; “Bibliomania”, at The Visual Arts Center of NJ; “In and Outside Writing“ at Voorkamer – Belgium; “Homeness”, “Domestico” and “Borders”, his first solo show- at Y Gallery; among others. He lives and works in New York and will participate in “Storytellers” at The Stenersen Museum, (Oslo) in 2012.