Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Awake Under Vines, the latest series of large-scale paintings by Ryan Pierce, featuring artworks that combine an electrified palette with allusions to environmental activism and radical resistance. In these new works, Pierce continues to illuminate relationships between the human and natural world through dynamic dreamlike imagery infused with moral complexity and wonderment.
Amid overgrown foliage or desolate desert landscapes, Pierce includes swirling, floating, dripping clothing, tools and detritus that form a surrealistic treasure map of discarded objects from celebratory aftermath. In the painting, The Ever-Parting Curtain, hints of figuration and domestic life intertwine with wild animals, flowers, trees and twisted branches. The artist’s sharp societal critique synthesizes with his idiosyncratic imagination to invite viewers into evocative and joyful scenes that propose a collective reawakening.
