The ArtBridge Drawing Room is very pleased to debut the work of Ryan Turley, with his multi-level immersive installation, Hi/Lo. Making use of everyday materials to stunning effect, Turley transforms the gallery into a sacred-yet-areligious retreat that encourages solitary wonder and introspection.

With, Hi/Lo, the artist offers up a welcome antidote to destructive bi-polarities, to the good-bad-happy-sad-top-bottom way in which we (knowingly or not) dilute the variable nature of human experience and confuse those who find themselves feeling somewhere in between. “It’s really in the grey areas where most things in our lives occur,” he says. Crafted from natural and synthetic elements, Hi/Lo coaxes viewers into this middle place by planting them squarely in the center of material extremes, in an ambiguous physical space analogous to the tricky emotional and psychological one he seeks to examine.

Though mesmerizing, the inner-workings of Turley’s installation are no mystery. Fixtures are left bare, cords visible, and simple diffraction film goes to work. It is a generous and candid approach that relieves visitors of their role in a guessing game of “how’d he do that,” and instead makes room for them to direct their attention inward and reflect upon their own unique reactions and sensations.

ABOUT RYAN TURLEY: Ryan Turley is a New York City-based artist who graduated in 2011 with his MFA in Sculpture from The Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Turley has shown in the United States as well as abroad focusing on sculpture and installation works that deal with issues relating to social conditions and politics. He recently completed his first large-scale pubic art work with a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and Grant at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota.