Casey Kaplan

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.