Photograph courtesy of Matthew Monteith
Bio
Ryan Arthurs is a visual artist living in Buffalo, New York. He received his M.F.A. in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and holds a B.F.A. in Studio Art from Carleton College. Ryan was a visiting professor at Carleton College, and was a photography teaching assistant at Harvard University. He was a printmaking Artist-In-Residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado and The Bothy Project, Isle of Eigg in Scotland.
Arthurs’ work has been exhibited at The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (Buffalo, NY), Radial Survey, Vol. II at Silver Eye Center for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), The National: Best Contemporary Photography at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana. His solo exhibitions credits include Carleton College (Northfield, MN) and Room 68 (Provincetown, MA). His work was selected by The Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Top 100 in 2018. In 2017 he was shortlisted for the Oseroff Memorial Purchase Prize administered by CEPA Gallery, and in 2015 was nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Artist Award.
In 2020 Arthurs founded RIVALRY PROJECTS, a contemporary art gallery and production studio in Buffalo, NY. Rivalry is founded on his competing motivations as an artist and curator to create an arts space that can function as both a site of exhibition and production of contemporary art. Rivalry exhibits emerging, mid-career and underrepresented artists working in all media. Rivalry is a member of NADA (The New Art Dealers Alliance) and has participated in art fairs in New York City, Chicago, Toronto and Miami.
Arthurs is also a founding member of Houseboat Press, a photography publishing company that has exhibited at both national and international art book fairs including; OFFPRINT Paris, the LA Art Book Fair, Aperture Foundation New York, and the Yale Museum of Art, New Haven.
Statements
Nothing of Weeds (in progress)
In Nothing of Weeds my aim is to explore the interplay of degradation and verdancy across rural landscapes within Western New York. These photos hold cycles of growth and decay as seen in crops and livestock, while also opening up space around conversations of what - to say nothing of the weeds - populates the rural pockets surrounding the city of Buffalo, New York. Weeds and flora within this series are a doubled metaphor for the preponderance of right-wing ideologies in rural communities, while speaking to the struggles of finding and maintaining presence as a queer person. These narratives emerge and struggle against one another throughout the series, adding tension to otherwise bucolic landscapes.
These photos were made during the preceding presidential election, its aftermath, and through the aggregate of a global pandemic. They contain moments of anxiety and loss, but also moments of solace and hope. The work approaches rural space with tenderness and generosity, while fields of flowers, orchards, structures covered with tangled plants soften the edges of these rusty, charred, derelict structures. The work within this series aims to imbue these landscapes with a queerness and vibrancy not contingent upon the weeds, but negotiated through and by their growth.
What is a weed, but a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with the intentionally cultivated? Considered undesirable; a plant in the wrong place. The greenery within these photographs becomes the means and the end, the signifier and signified, and a symbol of resilience and intrusion. As with my other work, this series explores a multitude of histories and superposition of narratives, both personal and regional. It is work in progress and I appreciate the opportunity to share it.
Strata (2015 - ongoing)
Since 2015 I have been making photographs between Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Scotland. These islands are situated between worlds, both geographically and metaphorically. They’ve come to embody the old and the new, spaces where time collapses, where past and present collide. For generations, families have survived on these rocky shores, living between the timeless beauty of the landscape and the hardship it poses.
T41L COD3 (2019)
Language is my weapon of choice. Sometimes it's stealthy, cloaked in the familiar and other times it's more obvious to communicate the point. I've been creating coded phrases using military aircraft magazines from the 1950-80s. The collage elements have been scanned and printed on aluminum, via a dye sublimation process, as to mirror the materials of the aircraft. The coded, queer phrases, are familiar to explicit vanity license plates and message boards of the gay community. These phrases have evolved with digital technology and hook-up apps, like Craigslist, Grindr, etc. Text speak, or leet talk, has become apart of our vernacular language IRL. I'm using the alpha-numeric style of military tail codes to form the phrases that contain multiple meanings, while also being visually obscured within the elements of the collage.
Expanded Statement for T41L C0D3
Available for purchase at Room 68
Liberty (2018)
Arthurs’ work asks the viewer to consider the question presented by Ernest J. Gaines, “Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?”
“Liberty” is a military term (most commonly used by the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps), which refers to a “pass” of authorized absence for short periods of time to provide respite from the working environment or for other reasons. Liberty is only for a short period of time — three days total. The title LIBERTY not only compliments the brief 72 hour run of the exhibition, but is also particularly appropriate given the current state of unrest in the U.S. and around the world. Arthurs says, “I see the work as a form of escapism from the violence and oppression of war and military regulation.”
Signal Watch (2017 - 2019)
The military employs a unique language – verbal, written, visual – to describe their rituals, routines and traditions. This is true within each branch, each division, and each unit. Queer servicemen likewise, used a coded language to seek one another out and develop their community under the surface of strict military order. I hand paint various military phrases with adhesive and gold leaf, selecting each for its coded double-meaning, to call attention to this unique and groundbreaking network of Americans. Phrases like “ one of the boys ” and “ deep cover ” hint at their presence and the fine line between sexual and non-sexual friendship, camaraderie, and brotherly love.
Masculine Decoys (2017 - ongoing)
My work in progress, Masculine Decoys, consists of portraits of Navy sailors silkscreened with decorative floral patterns. These patterns act as a form of camouflage, concealing the decoys with a lattice of navy blue flowers. The silkscreens also incorporate designs from naval signal flags and pennants, an alphanumeric code that was used to create unique visual communications. Even in the days of radio and satellite communication the U.S., Navy relied on alphanumeric signal flags and pennants for visual signaling; these signal flags allowed vessels to communicate while maintaining radio silence.
R+R (2013 - 2015)
As an artist and photographer, my work focuses on themes related to masculine identity. It explores the physical, mental, and bodily spaces where men go to assert their strength and prove themselves. Previous photographic series have focused on military men, outdoorsmen, white water kayaking and other adventure sports. Traversing harsh environments, my subjects, test the limits of their courage, flirt with danger, experience adrenaline, and rely on the bonds of friendship for survival.
Whereas earlier work used the natural world to explore themes of strength and toughness, my current work uses vintage military snapshots to investigate the bonds of friendship, playfulness and vulnerability of men in the military. This series, titled R+R (Rest + Relaxation), captures servicemen in moments of ease, play and vulnerability. Hanging out, swimming, smoking, drinking, and playing cards, these soldiers have let down their guard, both physically and emotionally. Freed from their duties, my subjects develop openly affectionate friendships and seek comfort in the simple pleasures of recreational activities in order to pass the time and distract themselves from the anxieties of war.
The Height of Land (2013)
"Perhaps it is God's will," writes Dillon Wallace, "that I finish the work / of exploration that Hubbard began" (from The Lure of Labrador Wild, 1905). For those who hear it, the call to travel north becomes insufferable. In the summer of 2012, I gave in. Five companions and I journeyed over 800 kilometers across the Canadian tundra following the Hubbards, route down the George River. Who can say what voice utters this call? It speaks to our most vulnerable selves. It teases out desire for adventure, pride, or love. It never grows silent.
The photographs in The Height of Land attempt to capture in image what I cannot put into words. The selection explores the daunting physical and spiritual commitment it takes to cross a body of land and the importance of companionship in an uninhabited country. Some images exhibit bodily or emotional duress and may leave the viewer wondering 'why did someone choose to spend large quantities of time and money to finish this trip?' The space opened between the image and the viewer's understanding-this is where the lure of the north speaks, insistent and patient, waiting to address anyone who hears it.
Virtual Spaces (2012)
I am interested in the male figure as a source of scripted desire and concealed shame. To download or send a digital image, it must be transcribed into binary, and re-formed upon each viewing. This code precedes the image; it limits it; it determines it. Like digital technology, queer desire must travel down previously prescribed paths. It must find a way to fit into spaces that were not designed for it. And yet, the most subtle gaze or action (or pixel) can alter the entire frame.
North of Here (2010 - 2011)
For the past year, I have been photographing white-water kayakers, canoeists, and the rugged landscapes they travel through. This work aims to push aside traditional concepts of pastoral aesthetics and capture the beauty and desire that paddlers exhibit through their spirit. My subjects are defined by what they do, and they become themselves in the doing. They desire to return to a more simple, off-the-grid way of life one that is full of challenge, adventure, independence and spontaneity. I'm fascinated with photography's ability to express the intimacy between the paddler and the challenges posed by his journey.