Download: Ryan M. Reynolds @ b. sakata garo
by David M. Roth
Blending abstraction and representation, Ryan M. Reynolds operates in familiar territory – the same one staked out more than half a century ago by Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and David Park. That, by itself, wouldn’t be noteworthy if Reynolds didn’t employ a few mannerisms not typically seen in Bay Area figurative painting: namely, an appealing blurriness, a fractured planar treatment that, in places, recalls David Hockney’s photo collages; bolder colors than those used by his predecessors; and a squint-inducing glare reminiscent of the one Robert Bechtle, a photorealist, used to depict San Francisco light. That combination of elements might not make him a bona fide original. But they do suggest a newfangled California Impressionism — one very different from the saccharine (and utterly forgettable) mode of landscape painting that took root under that label in the early 20th century.
What I like best about Reynolds is his willingness to get messy. Look closely at this exhibition’s title piece, Reflection, a painting of four figures exploring a tidepool. The foreground, a collection of luminous stains riven by vertical drips, could easily be mistaken for an artist’s palette if seen in isolation. Reynolds also likes visual non-sequiturs. Consider the three figures in the middle of the painting. They stand on rocks. But two of them also appear to be chest-high in water. If so, that is not something anyone could discern from the implied vantage. Never mind the decidedly unclear waters off the California coast, the subject of this, the artist’s second show at b. sakaka garo.
Reynolds applies the same techniques to recognizable landmarks. These include piers in Monterey, Capitola, Santa Cruz, and Pacifica and light-drenched scenes that could be anywhere on the coast between LA and Mendocino. Doheney Beach, my favorite among the paintings on view, is the one that most strongly recalls Hockney’s approach to composite picture-making. It shows a group of bathers on an expanse of shallow surf that reflects bits of sea and sky, patched together like pieces of a quilt.
These subjects couldn’t be further from the ones he explored in his last exhibition in this space in 2018. Reynolds devoted it to freeway traffic jams, echoing Wayne Thiebaud’s depiction of almost identical scenes. To some, his latest works might appear as little more than vestiges of last-century regionalism; on the other hand, they might also indicate something cyclical and more enduring: the onset of summer and the welcome scent of salt air.
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Ryan M. Reynolds: “Reflection” @ b. sakata garo through June 29, 2024.
About the author: David M. Roth is the editor, publisher and founder of Squarecylinder, where, since 2009, he has published over 400 reviews of Bay Area exhibitions. He was previously a contributor to Artweek and Art Ltd. and senior editor for art and culture at the Sacramento News & Review.