From the series Off The Wall (installation view at ICA at MECA, Portland, Maine)

Ryan Wallace is a New York artist who creates mixed media artworks and installations. The artist’s images often comprise strips and squares of different materials, layered next to and over one another to create a patchwork of colour and texture.

Collaboration with John Riepenhoff and Jerry The Marble Faun Torre (Installation view at the Elaine de Kooning House, East Hampton, New York)

Wallace’s artworks are an interesting exercise in composition. The strips of different material and colour that he uses in his two-dimensional, wall-hanging works are rarely perfectly rectangular or evenly spaced. They’re layered chaotically, and yet, there’s a definite sense of deliberateness in the way that each stripe of texture falls at a similar angle, guiding the viewer’s eye on an even path across the canvas.

This deliberate, calculated undertone comes to the forefront in works where Wallace uses more square-like planes of colour. In one installation at the Elaine de Kooning house, the entire floor of a space is re-worked with a rough grid of what could be tile and flooring scraps, giving the viewer the impression of a quilt made from hard surface materials.

from the series "Lenakaeia," (installation view at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco)