PARIS.- Perrotin Paris is presenting the gallery’s fifth solo exhibition with artist Matthew Ronay, Thirteen Forms, on view from June 5-July 26, 2025. The presentation brings together ten sculptures and three wall reliefs that continue Ronay’s exploration of the subconscious through his ability to transform the intangible into tactile experience. Ronay’s sculptural works evoke a phantom familiarity, as if plucked from the shadowy recesses of a fevered dream. Erotic undertones and a perverse alchemy of form pulse through Ronay’s objects, which are characterized by subversive humor. Central to the exhibition are two monumental horizontal installations, a polychrome work (The Tombs Are Upset, 2023) and, for the first time, a black monochrome (Contraband Emulator, 2024). Each appears as a kind of cursive script of forms, an approach first employed in Ronay’s 2022 exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas.

The artworks in Thirteen Forms stem from the artist’s decades-long practice of meditation and automatic drawing, from which Ronay culls his images. Each piece is hand carved in basswood and dyed in collaboration with the artist’s partner Bengü. As a coda to the exhibition, the artist engaged an AI language model to dissect the visual lexicon and underlying narratives within the works; the conversations documented in an accompanying PDF.

Born in 1976 in Louisville, Kentucky, Matthew Ronay earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, followed by an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. His has been exhibited internationally at the Hayward Gallery, London, U.K.; Serpentine Gallery, London, U.K.; Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, U.K.; Kunsthalle Lingen, Germany; LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster, Germany; Artspace, San Antonio, Texas; Sculpture Center, New York; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Ronay participated in the 2013 Lyon Biennale and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. In 2016, his work was the subject of solo- presentations at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, Texas and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida. In 2022, his work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas. Ronay’s work is in the following public collections: Albright Knox, Buffalo, New York; ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark; Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo, Norway; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Fürstenberg Zeitengenössisch, Germany; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Kistefos, Oslo, Norway; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX, Pérez Art Museum (PAMM), Miami, FL; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K., and the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA. Ronay lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.