REVERIES WITH THE LINE
Masha Ryskin

December 10, 2017 - April 19, 2018
Opening Reception: Sunday, December 10, 2017 | 1 - 3 PM, Champagne and light appetizers. FREE and open to the public.

Ryskin uses unique materials such as tea bags, recycled fabric, or coffee to record fragments of life and experience in her installations, drawings, paintings, and prints. Art critic Arthur Whitman refers to Ryskin's work as experimental, that which "crosses media and genre with an exploratory but disciplined sensibility." Her "fragments-made-whole sensibility" combined with her sewn together "scraps" suggest the human attempt to piece together fragments of memories. Loose threads add dimension to her highly textural surfaces implying an unraveling of historical experience. Neutral colors cast the eye on rich texture as the fluidity of movement stems from her brilliant control and quality of line. Vast areas of space intone silence, offering breathing room for the viewer before getting immersed, once again, in the linear integrations elsewhere in the composition.

Having emigrated from Russia, Ryskin's work focuses on a sense of place. By exploring the linear elements of the landscape, everyday rituals, and commonplace activities, Ryskin retains a source of material to assimilate her expressions of memory, the passage of time, and personal experience living and studying art under communistic rule. These elements of personal history taught Ryskin acute observational skills. Ryskin writes that her work "directs attention to footprints, stains, and other overlooked elements that speak of the temporal quality of the human experience."

Ryskin received a classical art education in Moscow, followed by a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of many grants and fellowships, including a Fulbright grant to Norway, and artist residencies in the United States and abroad. Her work has been exhibited at La Rectoria Centre of Contemporary Art, St. Pere de Vilamajor, Spain, Art Basel, Miami, 5th International Printmaking Biennial, Alijo, Portugal, Maison de la Culture Maisonneuve, Montreal, Helsinki, Finland, Boston, MA, Trondheim, Norway, East Haddam, CT, Rochester, NY and many other public venues. Ryskin is currently represented by Candita Clayton Gallery in Pawtucket, RI, the Artist File at the Painting Center in New York, NY, and Yellow Peril Gallery Flat Files in Providence, RI. She has been featured in The Ithaca Times, The Ithaca Post, The New York Times, and the Cleveland Free Times.

Curated by Kathrine Page

E. Avery Draper Gallery