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RON RIZK
AS I SEE IT June 15 - July 13, 2024 Opening Reception: Saturday, June 15, 4-7pm |
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Billis Williams Gallery is pleased to present RON RIZK: AS I SEE IT, the gallery’s second solo exhibition by the Southern California-based painter. The exhibition features the artist's recent oil paintings exploring personal histories through the structures that inhabit his memories. The exhibitions opens with a reception on June 15th and continues through July 13th.
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. Although they are devoid of human figures, the paintings are primarily about the impact of industry and human interventions in the landscape. The scenes are rendered in an idealized and poetically soft color palette but these landscapes are rich in complicated stories - industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized, places steeped in history.
Ron Rizk’s approach to this current body of architecture and landscape paintings is informed by his long history with trompe l’oeil still life painting. His earlier work drew on shallow space trompe l’oeil and California assemblage and this new series turns that eye and sensibility on to structures and flora.
This new work is arguably more autobiographical than the previous work but there are through-lines to all Rizk’s paintings: objects being used to tell a story. Compositions that were previously made up of found objects now are made up of structures Rizk constructs himself in foam core and paper. Buildings Rizk has seen in his extensive travels populate the paintings - surrounded by landscapes drawn from research, his imagination, or memories of places he has been.
There is a control and refinement to these paintings - an elegance and a subtlety - but always with Risk’s trademark whimsical sensibility. Rizk 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.
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 moved to Los Angeles in 1968 for a teaching position at the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California where he taught for more than four decades. He is a Professor Emeritus of Painting and was Chair of Studio Arts. Rizk lives and works in Whittier, CA.
For all press inquiries, please contact 310.838.3685 or [email protected]
For all other inquiries, please contact Tressa Williams at [email protected]
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. Although they are devoid of human figures, the paintings are primarily about the impact of industry and human interventions in the landscape. The scenes are rendered in an idealized and poetically soft color palette but these landscapes are rich in complicated stories - industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized, places steeped in history.
Ron Rizk’s approach to this current body of architecture and landscape paintings is informed by his long history with trompe l’oeil still life painting. His earlier work drew on shallow space trompe l’oeil and California assemblage and this new series turns that eye and sensibility on to structures and flora.
This new work is arguably more autobiographical than the previous work but there are through-lines to all Rizk’s paintings: objects being used to tell a story. Compositions that were previously made up of found objects now are made up of structures Rizk constructs himself in foam core and paper. Buildings Rizk has seen in his extensive travels populate the paintings - surrounded by landscapes drawn from research, his imagination, or memories of places he has been.
There is a control and refinement to these paintings - an elegance and a subtlety - but always with Risk’s trademark whimsical sensibility. Rizk 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.
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 moved to Los Angeles in 1968 for a teaching position at the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California where he taught for more than four decades. He is a Professor Emeritus of Painting and was Chair of Studio Arts. Rizk lives and works in Whittier, CA.
For all press inquiries, please contact 310.838.3685 or [email protected]
For all other inquiries, please contact Tressa Williams at [email protected]
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