LOS ANGELES, CA.- Edward Cella Art & Architecture is presenting Ryan Callis: Ocean Memories, the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Exploring his own intuition in relationship to memories and dreams of the ocean, Callis presents new paintings that combine abstraction, figuration, and illustration.
Charged with hyper awareness, personalities, suffering, and bliss, the artist describes his work by saying: “I spend so much time in the ocean; surfing, swimming, and often just looking and thinking about it and I can’t really describe it with a photograph--it’s all kind of a blur because I can’t wear my glasses. I go to my studio and make these studies of what it feels like to be with waves.”
From these studies, Callis uses a conceptual system that codes secret phrases and words into geometric forms like Morse Code. The completed paintings reveal traces of each of these gestures with a post-modern sensibility. In describing his approach to making art he says, “Sometimes when I am out in the ocean I look back at the beach, where the physical end of Western Civilization is and all of its promises. I like to think that at least for a moment, I am somewhere beyond that space.”
Ryan Callis received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Biola University. Callis’ paintings focus on conceptual and pictorial exploration, following various ideas, visual stimuli, process, and pictorial structure. Callis has had solo exhibitions at Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles, CA; Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA; and Ghetto Gloss, Los Angeles, CA. Group exhibitions include Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; POST Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA; and Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Callis’ work has been included in publications such as New American Paintings, Artforum, and Christopher Knight of The Los Angeles Times highlighted Callis in his article, “45 Painters Under 45.” His work is included in such public collections as the Orange County Museum of Art, and in many private collections. Ryan Callis lives and works in Seal Beach, CA.
