Ryan Bubnis is a mark maker hailing from Portland, OR. He produces work in a range of media and expressions including paintings, drawings, zines, illustrations and sculptures. Bubnis calls his work “urban folk” which perfectly conveys his feel. His work speaks of the connectiveness of all things, that deep down, we’re all closer than we realize. Artist Michael Sieben’s son helped further illustrate this point — Ryan’s was the first art he responded to. “I’d pick him up and show him the sculpture and he’d get the biggest smile every time. He (our son) has good taste.”
Pattern and texture reign supreme in Bubnis’ creations. Through this lens, he crafts objects and figures held together by their emotive qualities. Smiles bursting from moss-dappled, aged faces, delicate little plants pushing through piles of stones, playful tubers beckoning and a general sense of joy permeate his work. Ryan’s current style can be traced back to a trip to Argentina where he produced a series of drawings on a trip there in 2007, where he learned to work towards a more spontaneous, intuitive approach. In his recent paintings Bubnis moves towards objects arranged, perhaps by nature, perhaps by tribes of people. These arrangements and the power they possess drives this new body of work.
“I started my “Collection (The Power of Objects)” series a few months ago. Being a life-long collector, I started to think about how we assign power to objects,” Bubnis commented. “Is it nostalgia and the memories associated with these objects that make them important? Is it the monetary value of these objects and who decides how much these things are worth?”
