MASTERS OF DEATH, 2020 (left), I'M COMING HOME, 2020 (middle), and I SIT WITH IT, 2020 (right)
Ryan Travis Christian’s visual language is unmistakable: his compositions display dense layers of graphite, and their obsessive pencil lines delineate high-contrast graphic fantasies, hypnotic geometric patterns, characters out of pop culture moving in slow motion in hazy, surreal landscapes. They are inspired by old political caricatures and satirical cartoons, the traditional hand-drawn animation of the 1930s (especially the work of Ub Iwerks), the Chicago Imagists of the late 1960s (the artists who made up the group Hairy Who), 1980s pop culture, videogames, advertising.
AM I A VEGATABLE, 2020 and BBQ LEGS, 2020 (left), NIGHT HORSE, 2020 and TRAVELIN' BIG HAND MAN, 2020 (right)
BANG BANG PLAY takes us into a black-and-white world of drawings that are not animated but are full of movement, presenting stories that are strange, violent, chilling, sexual; existentialist allegories, sometimes despairing, deeply fascinating, figures that are outwardly cheery against a background revealing danger, seductive and banal at the same time. With a touch of black humour, Christian addresses themes as varied as fear, hope, doubt, depression, death, drugs, alcohol, self-medicating, nature, sex, gender, class, politics and the economy.
