Cordy Ryman

Painting on amalgamations of salvaged wood, Gorilla glue, sawdust, velcro, and scrap metal, Cordy Ryman creates works that inject bright color and imperfection into the Minimalist exploration of material and form. A son of Robert Ryman—the Minimalist painter who famously limited himself to a white square format—the younger Ryman is equally fascinated with the distinctions between art as object and as surface, but has loosened the previous generation’s rules. For example,


Windowboxing


(2013) is a site-specific installation of white rectangular window boxes hung on a wall whose rigid geometry is playfully undermined by the artist compiling them into a sloppy pyramid formation. Additionally, the empty interior of the frames are filled with shadows of fluorescent pink, yellow, and blue as the painted inner sides reflect against the wall. In a dance initiated by his found and recycled materials, the artist builds each piece by responding to what already exists within it. According to the artist, his post-minimalist approach is not just about the inherent qualities of the materials he uses, but, “all about reactions of one kind or another—reactions to elements within the materials, between different combined elements within a work, between the materials and the space around it.”

Cordy Ryman’s work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS, Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and Esbjerg Museum of Modern Art in Denmark among others. His gallery exhibitions include Zürcher Gallery, NYC, DODGE, NYC, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, NYC, and Kavi Gupta, Chicago. He was the recipient of the Helen Foster Barnett Prize from the National Academy Museum.