In coordination with Newburgh’s Last Saturday events, the Safe Harbors of the Hudson Ann Street Gallery is pleased host a Gallery Talk with artist, Ryan Roa on Saturday, September 26 at 6:30 p.m. Roa’s sculptures and drawings are featured in the solo exhibit Mélange. This event is free and open to the public.

Mélange is artist Ryan Roa’s tenth solo exhibition, featuring his most recent sculptures and drawings. The sculptures on display in this exhibition are comprised of everyday utilitarian materials: expanded steel, nuts, bolts, washers, and threaded rods, which are in complete contrast with the fluidity of the sculptures shapes and forms. Employing a harsh metal to fabricate delicate shapes not only challenges the material’s limitations but also emphasizes the duality of the sculpture’s aesthetic quality.

Over the years, Roa’s work has charted a trajectory of increasing conceptual and visual complexity by exploring and often undermining the nature of forms and their interrelationship with the materials that create them. This concern is also echoed in Roa’s drawing practice that comprises of largely material-based graphite and charcoal drawings. In this series of small and large scale drawings, Rao focuses on the manipulation of materials and the manipulating operations of drawing, retaining the emphasis on process. This intuitive decision was informed by a systematic approach to their image making, where he first develops a framework, working with hard or soft edges, and then decided on the type of lines or mark-making that would fill those spaces.

In the artist’s own words, this recent body of work is influenced by “things in flux that are energized by change and conflict.”

Ryan Roa received a M.F.A. from Hunter College and a B.F.A. from SUNY New Paltz. His solo exhibitions include the Jersey City Museum, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Trinity Museum. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions that include: The Bronx Museum of Art, the Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Rush Arts, The Socrates Sculpture Park, Flux Factory, Emerson Dorsch Gallery and Rooster Gallery. Roa currently lives in Beacon, New York.

This exhibition will be on view through Saturday, September 26, 2015. Mélange was curated by Virginia Walsh, Director and Curator of Exhibitions at Ann Street Gallery, a project of Safe Harbors of the Hudson. The Ann Street Gallery specializes in contemporary, emerging and established artists and provides quality exhibitions, programs and events that encourage a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art across cultures and among generations.

For more information contact Virginia Walsh at (845) 784-1146 or vwalsh@annstreetgallery.org.
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The gallery is located at 104 Ann Street, Newburgh, NY.

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday and Thursday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(closed for lunch 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.)
Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Newburgh Last Saturdays of each month 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.