For Frieze New York 2023, Casey Kaplan presents a single, monumental sculpture by Matthew Ronay, his largest to date, entitled The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode (2022). Previously this work was the the focus of the artist’s solo exhibition (of the same title) at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas.
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Matthew Ronay
The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, 2022
Basswood, dye, gouache, flocking, plastic, steel, cotton, epoxy, HMA
37.75 x 284 x 13" / 95.9 x 721.4 x 33cm
The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode spans nearly 24 feet and displays a subconscious world born from the artist’s ruminations on apocalyptic stories and mystical prophecies. A series of three-dimensional compositions comprise the work, each individually carved, flocked, and dyed before being joined together. Recalling an ancient frieze, The Crack's song of end times unfolds as a linear narrative. Both ends of the sculpture are dyed with bruise-like, mauve-violet tones. This loop of color suggests that the parade of connected forms, and the world Ronay has created before us, ends and begins at the same place.
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Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, 2022 (detail)
Absurdity takes hold as otherworldly creatures sit alongside human-like figures — stacked amoeba-shaped objects counter a body that rests on elongated limbs. Meanwhile, a disembodied finger points to the furious scarlet totem at the center of the sculpture, who is implied incarnate by the lungs anchoring its weight.
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Installation View: Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, Frieze New York, May 17 - May 21, 2023. Photo: Dan Bradica
At the inception of Ronay’s practice is automatic drawing, an expression of the subconscious ran through the sieve of the artist’s hand. The motifs that comprise The Crack, were conceived from nearly three dozen renderings Ronay compulsively drew across multiple notebooks over the past seven years. The drawings were then systemically realized in three-dimensional states by fastidious, and ongoingly automatic, carving in basswood. The recursive procession of forms acknowledges Ronay’s career-long interest in the rhythm of craft as a coping mechanism for the untenable parts of existence.
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Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, 2022 (detail)
The drawings were then systemically realized in three-dimensional states by fastidious, and ongoingly automatic, carving in basswood. The recursive procession of forms acknowledges Ronay’s career-long interest in the rhythm of craft as a coping mechanism for the untenable parts of existence.
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Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, 2022 (detail)
A pathological exploration of systems — including bodily cycles, mythological patterns, and creative processes — The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode wields the passage of time to posit an incendiary end.
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Installation View: Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, Frieze New York, May 17 - May 21, 2023. Photo: Dan Bradica
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Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, 2022 (detail)
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New York-based artist Matthew Ronay (B. 1976, Louisville, Kentucky) is best known for his chromatic, handmade wood sculptures that at different turns suggest unearthly landscapes with futuristic architectures and bodily processes like digestion and aging. A consummate woodworker, Ronay crafts his sculptures by hand carving, grinding, and sanding basswood. He then dyes it and occasionally applies flocking, before combining several elements together in a unified composition, transforming the materials into phantasmagorical worlds. Ronay studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art before earning his MFA from Yale University in 2000. In 2022, the artist presented a solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, in conjunction with a fully illustrated monograph. In 2016, his work was the subject of solo presentations at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, Texas and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida. Ronay has exhibited at institutions including Kunsthalle Lingen, Germany; University of Louisville, Kentucky; Artspace, San Antonio, Texas; Serpentine Gallery, London; Sculpture Center, New York; Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, Kentucky; and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London. Ronay participated in the 2013 Lyon Biennale, curated by Gunnar Kvaran, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
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Installation View: Matthew Ronay, The Crack, the Swell, an Earth, an Ode, Frieze New York, May 17 - May 21, 2023. Photo: Dan Bradica
