Billis/Williams Gallery is pleased to present RON RIZK: For the Time Being, the gallery’s third solo exhibition of the Southern California-based painter’s work. The exhibition features the artist’s new magical realist oil paintings exploring personal histories through the structures that inhabit his memories. The exhibition opens with a reception on October 17th and continues through November 14th.
Ron Rizk, well known for his trompe l’oeil still-life paintings, continues to push and evolve his work. Now 85 years old, Rizk paints with a command of the medium only achieved through decades of experience. This new work is arguably more autobiographical than the previous work but there are through-lines that connect all of Rizk’s paintings: objects telling a story.
Ron Rizk’s approach to this current body of architecture and landscape paintings is informed by his long history of still life painting. Rizk’s earlier work drew on shallow space trompe l’oeil and California assemblage and this new series turns that eye and sensibility to structures and flora. Compositions that were previously made up of found objects now are made up of structures the artist constructs in foam core and places in simple dioramas. Buildings that Rizk has seen in his extensive travels populate the paintings – surrounded by landscapes drawn from research, his imagination, or memories of places he has visited.
Rizk constructs the architecture in paper – simplifying the forms to capture their essential shapes. The impermanence and fragility of the structures echo the impermanence of memory and of human civilization. Although they are devoid of human figures, the paintings are primarily about the impact of industry and human interventions in the landscape. The scenes are rendered in more saturated colors that also harken back to Rizk’s intensely hued still-life work. These landscapes are rich in complicated stories – industries that came and went, dreams that might or might not be realized, places steeped in history and hope.
In these new paintings, the perspective shifts and the intention is less literal: tilled fields become colorfield abstractions, sharp shadows of architecture become unexpected composition elements, textures rise in the rendering of leafy foliage. And yet through it all, Rizk’s meticulous detail work pulls the viewer in to visually roam through these magical landscapes.
There is a control and refinement to these paintings – an elegance and a subtlety – and as always, Risk’s trademark whimsical sensibility. Risk is creating worlds for himself and for the viewer – we are drawn in to the minute details of the foliage, to the peek through the windows, to wonder at the light. There is a reverence for the spaces that is palpable in the these paintings – a fascination and a wonder and a deep appreciation for place.
Ron Rizk (b. 1941, New Brunswick, NJ) received a diploma from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. His work has been exhibited extensively in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States. He is a Professor Emeritus of Painting and was Chair of Studio Arts at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts. He lives and works in Whittier, CA.
