RON RIZK
On Painting Architecture and Imagined Landscapes
Exhibition: FOR THE TIME BEING
Oct. 17 - Nov. 14, 2026
Ron Rizk’s new magical realist oil paintings explore personal histories through the structures that inhabit his memories. In these new paintings, the perspective shifts and the intention is less literal: tilled fields become colorfield abstractions, sharp shadows of architecture become unexpected composition elements, textures rise in the rendering of leafy foliage. And yet through it all, Rizk’s meticulous detail work pulls the viewer in to visually roam through these magical landscapes.
Flying Low, 2025, oil on panel, 16x20 in.
Get to know Ron in Five Questions
Where do you look for inspiration?
RR: Natural landscape, agricultural landscape, architecture, and art history.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
RR: Something different every other week.
Coffee or tea?
RR: Coffee.
What do you do to relax?
RR: Reading, mostly historical and biographies.
One artwork you are happy to have seen in person:
The Ghent Altarpiece
Installation View:
Devonshire Cottage (2025, oil on panel, 30x24 in.) and model used to create the painting
Exhibition: For the Time Being, 2026
On Technique and Process
What is the first thing you do when starting a new painting?
RR: Rough sketches and then detailed drawings.
How do you know when a painting is done?
RR: There is usually the need for a subtle punctuation that resolves any lingering issue in the painting or I simply can’t look at it any longer.
Describe your studio in one sentence:
RR: Fifty years in this studio with perfect natural lighting from clerestory windows.
Reconstruction, 2026, oil on panel, 24x36 in.
There is a control and refinement to these paintings - an elegance and a subtlety - and as always, Risk’s trademark whimsical sensibility. Risk is creating worlds for himself and for the viewer - we are drawn in to the minute details of the foliage, to the peek through the windows, to wonder at the light. There is a reverence for the spaces that is palpable in the these paintings - a fascination and a wonder and a deep appreciation for place.
-Tressa Williams, Billis/Williams Gallery
Model for Devonshire Cottage, foam core and paper
Ron Rizk’s approach to this current body of architecture and landscape paintings is informed by his long history of still life painting. Rizk’s earlier work drew on shallow space trompe l’oeil and California assemblage and this new series turns that eye and sensibility to structures and flora. Compositions that were previously made up of found objects now are made up of structures the artist constructs in foam core and places in simple dioramas. Buildings that Rizk has seen in his extensive travels populate the paintings - surrounded by landscapes drawn from research, his imagination, or memories of places he has visited.
Pictured: Evolution, 1991, oil on panel, 18x24 inches
View from the Brook, 2026, oil on panel, 24x30 in.
A QUOTE
A quote that you find inspiring:
RR: From Charles Magneto, 1966.
“Do the best you can.”
RON RIZK: FOR THE TIME BEING
October 17 - November 14, 2026
MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
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