Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to present Babel, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Josh Dorman. This is Dorman’s first exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery.

Since 2001 Dorman has been using topographical maps as a framework for the complex ideas and images that fill his paintings. Combining ink, acrylic and collage atop antique maps and paper, he creates fantastical universes that explore the connectedness of all things.

Using collage elements from old textbooks and elaborating on them with his own drawing, Dorman suggests links between the natural and the man-made. He is particular about the maps and collage elements he uses: the maps must be pre-1940, and the textbook images are all prephotographic diagrams or engravings. While Dorman’s works compel one to look for a narrative, his suggestions are subtle. What each viewer reads is entirely their own interpretation.

Rich in detail, Dorman’s paintings encourage discovery. The works continue to open up and unfold as the viewer approaches them. Forms and meanings reveal themselves to Dorman as he works. At times he lets the maps dictate where he goes, following a maze of sepia lines or playing off the name of a river, town, or mountain range. He often works on several fragments of paintings at a time, carrying around pieces of maps, drawing on them throughout the day, and later weaving them into the larger composition.

Dorman’s intricate works are vast and multi-layered, linking themes of war, creation, and destruction. Influenced by Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Breughel, Dorman uses symbols and allegories to comment on the contemporary world and human nature. Babel, the title work in this exhibition, is made of up 32 two individual panels completed over many months. Each panel is like a building block needed to create his Tower of Babel. The title alludes to Babel, a historically and biblically referenced city that epitomized utopian ideals while simultaneously representing the destruction of a unified humanity.

Sum, 2006, is a monumental painting (88×120 inches) done on 75 adjoining panels. The left side of the painting is dominated by mechanical forms—assembly lines of gears, wheels, robots, and machine parts moving along suspended conveyor belts that appear out of nowhere. Suspended bridges and tunnels emerge and retreat, as blocky edifices give way to craggy peaks and a tangle of forest.

Also on view are several single-panel paintings as well as small works on paper that Dorman calls “Poems,” which were inspired by a leather-bound volume of antique paper. These intimate works contain only a few collage images combined with his drawings. Much more immediate in process, these spare, mysterious drawings possess an inherent harmony.