Ryan Gilmartin (b.1978) is a visual artist whose current work continues to explore abstraction through painting and drawing. His search for imagery is central to his process and the results come from adding multiple layers of paint and drawing materials. What develops is a textured archive of a process and his discovery of something unexpected.
He is interested in challenging ideas of representation and identification using undefined pictorial space and ambiguous or distorted shapes and lines. Ryan is careful to allow for uncertainty in his work while also suggesting something recognizable. Intimations of everyday objects, figures, landscapes, architecture, or apparent text may be present in his paintings and may provide a sense of connection for the viewer- while simultaneously disconnecting them. His aim is to give the viewer an opportunity for searching while evading preformed understandings.
He has exhibited his work nationally and has a master’s degree in fine art from Pratt Institute in New York. He currently lives and works in Denver CO.
