Lairs by Ryan Browning lives up to its name. When walking into the Rice Gallery the viewer is transported into a new world. Browning’s inspiration comes from the video games of his childhood and these alternate realities and parallel worlds creep into his art, pervading the gallery with images from the imagination. The paintings on the walls show hideaways, caves, and secret spaces for individuals to escape to. Lairs exhibits Browning’s talents not only in oil but also in his use of graphite, watercolor and ballpoint pen. The intricately drawn landscapes and interior scenes of ‘Every Last Mountain’ and ‘Torch Eyes’ shows the attention to detail taken in the repetitive images. All of these works show Browning’s talent and the diversity of his abilities while remaining true to his ideas and the alternate world he has created.
The works are intended to imitate a digital world and this can be seen in the way the brushstrokes are hidden and the artist’s hand has been removed from the works. Even the ballpoint pen pieces seem to have been created by an outside force because of the repetitive and monotonous feeling of the works. Browning wants his works to be a type of re-visioning of the world around him and remind viewers of landscapes. His “remixes of landscapes” have a postmodern feel to them because they show reminisces of human interaction but there are no people in any of his works.
Browning does not stick to the traditional ways of showing his works. He tries new and inventive ways to present his pieces. In ‘Torch Eyes’, he frames the two works in round, crisp, white frames. The two pieces are meant to be seen as one work and appear like eyes to the viewer. Another piece that appears to be multiple works is ‘Time Passes on the Mirror Planes’. This piece contains multiple framed images starting on one wall and creeping onto the adjacent wall. The landscape is suspended in air and three loops extend from framed piece to framed piece until one by one they end leaving only one to continue to the end of the piece. This idea of multiple pieces framed individually to make one whole work aids his connection to the virtual world of video games because each framed piece parallels to the individual snap shots of the worlds seen on the computer or TV screen when playing the game.
The overall feeling of a fantasy world created from his mind is conveyed through the landscapes and scenes depicted in each of the pieces. These worlds correspond to the worlds made in a gamers mind when playing in a virtual reality.
– Review by Jessica Oros
