Casey Kaplan
SERIES: MATTHEW RONAY
April 2020
The series of handmade sculptures by New York-based artist Matthew Ronay creates abstract and surreal forms that oscillate between organic and technological, primordial and futuristic. Each component is carved, polished, dyed and joined together in colorful configurations that visually challenge their wooden medium.
Ronay explores the phenomenological experience through the carved object while maintaining a deviant humor, present in many of his previous works. In particular, this works evoke different biological processes – such as nudity, sexuality, digestion, disease and aging – common across the biosphere. In this complex environment, each individual is not an autonomous entity, but exists within a nuanced web of connection and systemic meaning.
Image: Matthew Ronay, Song of the Umbilicus, 2018 (detail)