RON RIZK: Of Structure and Place
May 14 - June 18, 2022 |
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
GBGLA is pleased to present Of Structure and Place, Southern California painter Ron Rizk’s first solo show with the gallery. In this new series of oil paintings, Rizk explores personal histories through the structures that inhabit his memories.
Ron Rizk’s paintings depict the intimate personal history of locales from his life. Ethereal and yet grounded in reality, the paintings tell the stories of very real places as seen through the artist’s memories. Highly accurate in some aspects and imagined in others, the paintings exist in a space between reality and the surreal.
Rizk constructs the architecture in paper - simplifying the forms to capture their essential shapes. The impermanence and fragility of the structures echo the impermanence of memory and of human civilization. Idealized with a hint of melancholy, the paintings are didactic and simultaneously transporting - we see the history of the factory town Rizk grew up in, his imagined dream house, and places he has visited over his life.
The paintings are devoid of human figures while being primarily about the impact of industry and about human interventions in the landscape. The scenes are rendered in an idealized and poetically soft color palette but these landscapes are rich in complicated histories - industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized - the past as seen through rose colored glasses.
Ron Rizk was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He received a diploma from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. He is a Professor of Painting and Chair of Studio Arts at the University of Southern California Roski School of Fine Arts.
Ron Rizk’s paintings depict the intimate personal history of locales from his life. Ethereal and yet grounded in reality, the paintings tell the stories of very real places as seen through the artist’s memories. Highly accurate in some aspects and imagined in others, the paintings exist in a space between reality and the surreal.
Rizk constructs the architecture in paper - simplifying the forms to capture their essential shapes. The impermanence and fragility of the structures echo the impermanence of memory and of human civilization. Idealized with a hint of melancholy, the paintings are didactic and simultaneously transporting - we see the history of the factory town Rizk grew up in, his imagined dream house, and places he has visited over his life.
The paintings are devoid of human figures while being primarily about the impact of industry and about human interventions in the landscape. The scenes are rendered in an idealized and poetically soft color palette but these landscapes are rich in complicated histories - industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized - the past as seen through rose colored glasses.
Ron Rizk was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He received a diploma from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. He is a Professor of Painting and Chair of Studio Arts at the University of Southern California Roski School of Fine Arts.
VIEW EXHIBITION
Billis Williams Gallery opened as George Billis Gallery Los Angeles in 2004. Tressa Williams joined as director in 2009 and became partner in 2021. Billis Williams Gallery builds on the Billis legacy and shows emerging to mid-career artists with a special focus on Southern California painters. The gallery is dedicated to exhibiting exceptional work in richly varied visual vocabularies ranging from abstraction to photorealism.
Billis Williams Gallery
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
[email protected]
www.BillisWilliams.com
Billis Williams Gallery
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
[email protected]
www.BillisWilliams.com